The Island Quotes

Can you be from a place
you have never been?

You can find the island stamped all over me,
but what would the island find if I was there?

Can you claim a home that does not know you,
much less claim you as its own? ~ Elizabeth Acevedo

Stirring the pastry cream and putting it in the blast chiller in the island, a total chefly indulgence that I have never once regretted. The house filling with the scent of rich, dark chocolate as the cakes rise in the oven. The treat of the moist trimmings as I even up the layers before spreading the thick custard filling between them. The fudgy frosting smoothed perfectly over the whole thing, and then immediately marred with chocolate cookie crumbs. ~ Stacey Ballis

Let me tell you something: if you're on an island for three and a half months and you're four and a half hours by boat from the nearest store, and there's nobody but 30 crew members on the island, I guarantee that you'd be running around without your clothes on. ~ Christopher Atkins

The grief of the keen is no personal complaint for the death of one woman over eighty years, but seems to contain the whole passionate rage that lurks somewhere in every native of the island. ~ John Millington Synge

After the island of Sebu follow immediately the island of Mindanao, an island of more than three hundred leguas in circumference, and Jolo, which is small. Lower down is the island of Borneo, a very large island, more than five hundred leguas in circumference. All of these islands are densely populated, although that of Borneo is not subdued. Neither is that of Mindanao in entirety, but only the river of Botuan, Dapitan, and the province and coast of Caragan. ~ Antonio De Morga

On the island of By-the-Sea you could always smell two things: salt and magic. ~ Katrina Leno

Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars. Then the breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and tickle of water that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of the island. The air was cool, moist, and clear; and presently even the sound of the water was still. The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the stains spread, inch by inch.

The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed. The clear water mirrored the clear sky and the angular bright constellations. The line of phosphorescence bulged about the sand grains and little pebbles; it held them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly accepted them with an inaudible syllable and moved on.

Along the shoreward edge of the shallows the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes. Here and there a larger pebble clung to its own air and was covered with a coat of pearls. The tide swelled in over the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with a layer of silver. Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge. The water rose further and dressed Simon's coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured mar ~ William Golding

We are the Island of Misfit Toys, all broken or smashed in some way. ~ Corrine Jackson

But everyone knows that the Breccia Domain is more than an empty hole in the earth. Who knows what happened to the queens who were thrown down into the dark? Into the heart of the island, where the Goddess's eye is always open. Who knows how she kept those queens or what she turned them into ~ Kendare Blake

Some of the streets are, however, genuinely narrow. These same streets may not be filled with machine-gun fire and the dramatic screech of violins, but they overflow with the invisible and innumerable longings of the human heart. Love continues to minister here, but betrayal still wears its perfidious face, hatred hollows out the weak man's breast, revenge pursues its self-defeating course; and the unfulfilled dreams of the multitude haunt the island like so many hungry ghosts. ~ John Dolan

Here on the island I find I can sit with a friend without talking, sharing the day's last sliver of pale green light on the horizon, or the whorls in a small white shell, or the dark scar left in a dazzling night sky by a shooting star. Then communication becomes communion and one is nourished as one never is by words. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Why do you want to know?"
The shrug again. "Just wondering."
"Really. You've skipped your lawn tennis or duck hunting or whiskey drinking or whatever else people of your sort do all day, only to come all the way out to the island to ask me about the piano piece. Because you were just wondering." I pushed away from the door. "Coming here to kiss me would have been more believable."
"Well, it was second on my list."
"I'm not intimidated by you," I said, blunt. "If you're hoping I'll turn out to be some pathetic, blubbering little rag-girl who begs you not to ruin her, you're in for a surprise."
"That's good." Lord Armand met my eyes. "I like surprises."
We gazed at each other, he on the bed and me by the door, neither of us giving quarter. It seemed to me that the room was growing even more dim, that time was repeating the same ploy it had pulled in Jesse's cottage, drawing out long and slow. The storm outside railed against the castle walls, drowning the air within. It layered darkness through Armand's eyes, the once-vivid blue now deep as the ocean at night.
Beyond my window the rain fell and fell, fat clouds weeping as if they'd never stop.
"Nice bracelet," Armand said softly. "Did you steal it?"
I shook my head. "You gave it to me."
"Did I?"
"As far as everyone else if concerned, yes. You did."
"Hmm. And what do I get in return for agreeing to be your…benefactor?"
"The answer to your question."
"No kiss?" ~ Shana Abe

There was a quote he could not quite remember, something about the past being an island surrounded by time. He had missed the last boat to the island. ~ Joanne Harris

He argued unconvincingly that they would let him alone, perhaps even make an outlaw of him. But then the fatal unreasoning knowledge came to him again. The breaking of the conch and the death of Piggy and Simon lay over the island like a vapor. These painted savages would go further and further. Then there was that indefinable connection between himself and Jack; who therefore would never let him alone; never. ~ William Golding

Or she may find out what is at the end of the harbor road ... that wandering, twisting road like a nice red snake, that leads, so Elizabeth thinks, to the end of the world. Perhaps the Island of Happiness is there. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Henry's Understanding
He was reading late, at Richard's, down in Maine,
aged 32? Richard & Helen long in bed,
my good wife long in bed.
All I had to do was strip & get into my bed,
putting the marker in the book, & sleep,
& wake to a hot breakfast.
Off the coast was an island, P'tit Manaan,
the bluff from Richard's lawn was almost sheer.
A chill at four o'clock.
It only takes a few minutes to make a man.
A concentration upon now & here.
Suddenly, unlike Bach,
& horribly, unlike Bach, it occurred to me
that one night, instead of warm pajamas,
I'd take off all my clothes
& cross the damp cold lawn & down the bluff
into the terrible water & walk forever
under it out toward the island. ~ John Berryman

In no way can words convey the nagual. But they open up the possibility. They allow an admission on the island of the tonal. ~ Frederick Lenz

When Franz returned to himself, he seemed still to be in a dream. He thought himself in a sepulchre, into which a ray of sunlight in pity scarcely penetrated. He stretched forth his hand, and touched stone; he rose to his seat, and found himself lying on his bournous in a bed of dry heather, very soft and odoriferous. The vision had fled; and as if the statues had been but shadows from the tomb, they had vanished at his waking. He advanced several paces towards the point whence the light came, and to all the excitement of his dream succeeded the calmness of reality. He found that he was in a grotto, went towards the opening, and through a kind of fanlight saw a blue sea and an azure sky. The air and water were shining in the beams of the morning sun; on the shore the sailors were sitting, chatting and laughing; and at ten yards from them the boat was at anchor, undulating gracefully on the water. There for some time he enjoyed the fresh breeze which played on his brow, and listened to the dash of the waves on the beach, that left against the rocks a lace of foam as white as silver. He was for some time without reflection or thought for the divine charm which is in the things of nature, specially after a fantastic dream; then gradually this view of the outer world, so calm, so pure, so grand, reminded him of the illusiveness of his vision, and once more awakened memory. He recalled his arrival on the island, his presentation to a smuggler chief, a subterranean palace full of s ~ Alexandre Dumas

There was no response. Soon afterward, a skiff flying the Spanish flag approached the Charleston. Two Spanish officers came aboard and apologized for not having returned the American "salute" because they had no gunpowder left in their arsenal. It turned out that they had not been resupplied for months and did not know the United States and Spain were at war. The next morning an American lieutenant went ashore. At 10:15 he handed the Spanish commandant a message demanding surrender of the island within thirty minutes. The commandant retired to his quarters. Twenty-nine minutes later he emerged with a reply. "Being without defenses of any kind and without any means for meeting the present situation," he had written, "I am under the sad necessity of being unable to resist such superior forces and regretfully accede to your demands. ~ Stephen Kinzer

I did write some code in Java once, but that was the island in Indonesia. ~ Richard Stallman

Why leave a country when you're on top? Whether it was another communist scare or the even greener pastures in America, no one ever gives me a straight answer. (The only thing anyone can agree on is that they still miss the island.) ~ Eddie Huang

Have any of you taken a look out at Greece in the last, say, hour or so? (Hermes) What? Are they reacting to the fact I cursed the Apollites? (Apollo) I don't think that bothers them nearly as much as the fact the island of Atlantis is now gone and the Atlantean goddess Apollymi is cutting a swathe through our country, laying waste to everyone and everything she comes into contact with. And in case you're curious, she's headed straight for us. I could be really wrong here, but I'm guessing the woman's extremely pissed. (Hermes) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Come along,' she said. 'They're waiting.'
He had never felt so happy in the whole of his life! Without a word they made it up. They walked down to the lake. He had twenty minutes of perfect happiness. Her voice, her laugh, her dress (something floating, white, crimson), her spirit, her adventurousness; she made them all disembark and explore the island; she startled a hen; she laughed; she sang. And all the time, he knew perfectly well, Dalloway was falling in love with her; she was falling in love with Dalloway; but it didn't seem to matter. Nothing mattered. They sat on the ground and talked-he and Clarissa. They went in and out of each other's minds without any effort. And then in a second it was over. He said to himself as they were getting into the boat, 'She will marry that man,' dully, without any resentment; but it was an obvious thing. Dalloway would marry Clarissa. ~ Virginia Woolf

I don't know if you have ever seem a map of a person's mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is always more or less and island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose. ~ J.M. Barrie

We have an ideal location for a couple of organic wineries on the island. But the reintroduction of commercial agriculture to Lanai is 100% dependent upon increasing the available water on the island. So we're going to use solar energy to convert seawater to fresh water. ~ Larry Ellison

Not knowing that I am in the ocean of love, I am swimming to reach the island of love. ~ Debasish Mridha

Remembering the loss of those Irishmen from all parts of the island who were sent to their deaths in the imperialist slaughter of the First World War is crucial to understanding our history. It is also important to recognise the special significance in which the Battle of the Somme and the First World War is held. ~ Martin McGuinness

There are several sorts of religions, not only in different parts of the island, but even in every town; some worshipping the sun, others the moon or one of the planets. ~ Thomas More

.... So Cu Chulainn asked and he asked, and at length he learned that the best teacher of the arts of war was a woman, Scathach, a strange creature who lived on a tiny island off the coast of Alba."
"A woman?" someone echoed scornfully. "How could that be?"
"Ah, well, this was no ordinary woman, as our hero soon found out for himself. When he came to the wild shore of Alba and looked across the raging waters to the island where she lived with her warrior women, he saw that there could be a difficulty before he even set foot there. For the only way across was by means of a high, narrow bridge, just wide enough for one man to walk on. And the instant he set his foot upon its span, the bridge began to shake and flex and bounce up and down, all along its considerable length, so that anyone foolish enough to venture farther along it would straightaway be tossed down onto the knife-sharp rocks or into the boiling surf."
"Why didn't he use a boat?" asked Spider with a perplexed frown.
"Didn't you hear what Liadan said?" Gull responded with derision. "Raging waters? Boiling surf? No boat could have crossed that sea, I'd wager. ~ Juliet Marillier

This is when I forgave my parents. This big secret that was not ready to reveal itself was the reason my parents had sent us here. This colossal secret was the reason my parents had been absent from their children, had never talked too much, but clearly had plenty to give.
This is when I forgave my parents. On the remainder of our silent journey to the island, my soul was anything but mute. This is when I mourned the death of Murdoch and Elizabeth Benedict for the first time. ~ Tabitha Freeman

In the steel-and-glass society that we live in, the value system would be that the lawyer, with the Mercedes and the fine suit and the Ivy League education, was more valued than the minority without the education. But on the island, the rules are changed. It's the person who can make a fire or who can make friends. A kind human soul is valued. ~ Scott Raab

We are Bayern Munich and English teams always have trouble as soon as they leave the island. ~ Oliver Kahn

I went to the railing and looked out over the sea. It had been fussing earlier in the day, but now it lay greasy and hushed. 'You got a tremendous prospect from up here, Brother Assembly.'

'Aye. Two evenings hence, for instance, I noted thy schooner passing westward. I also saw a cutter at the same time, a low and black-hulled cutter, British from the look of her, beating eastward beyond Vandyke's. She kept the island betwixt herself and thee, and sailed on into yon flat ugly yellow clouds.' He nodded to the east.

I got a crawly feeling between my shoulders, like I'd been hunting a panther and discovered it had been hunting me. 'Well, then,' I said, 'I guess I'd best be shoving off.'

'Tomorrow is the first of October. There have been no hurricanes yet this season worth mentioning, but a noteworthy one approaches now, thou mustn't doubt. Do not cling too tightly to ephemeral notions and worldly things, Brother, lest thou lose what thou most values.' He whistled an old Shaker hymn that was popular among the Brethren:
'Tis a gift to be simple,
'Tis a gift to be free,
'Tis a gift to come down
Where we ought to be...

I knocked on the railing, annoyed with myself for my superstitiousness but angrier with Assembly for baiting me. 'Of all the infernal meanness,' I said. 'Don't whistle for a wind in hurricane season!'

'Oh, as for that,' he said, the corners of his naked lip turning up just a little bit, ' ~ Broos Campbell

I envisaged a woman of the late nineteenth century marrying into this milieu, finding it unendurable and fleeing back with her child to the more ordinary hazards of London: of that child, given at her christening the ancient Roman name for the island, Sarnia, but reared in ignorance of her paternal background, discovering, after her mother's death, that she was an heiress, and being bidden back to claim her patrimony. Skulduggery followed naturally.
(On the writing of SARNIA) ~ Hilary Ford

Now that I've got this to keep me safe off the island," I said very quietly, "what's to stop me from having Alfred drop you into a cell right this second, and solving my problems myself?" "I am," Mab said. She gave me a very small, very chill smile, and held up her finger. There was a tiny droplet of my blood upon it, scarlet against her pale skin. ~ Jim Butcher

All rebel thought, as we
have seen, is expressed either in rhetoric or in a closed universe. The rhetoric of ramparts in Lucretius, the
convents and isolated castles of Sade, the island or the lonely rock of the romantics, the solitary heights of
Nietzsche, the primeval seas of Lautreamont, the parapets of Rimbaud, the terrifying castles of the
surrealists, which spring up in a storm of flowers, the prison, the nation behind barbed wire, the
concentration camps, the empire of free slaves, all illustrate, after their own fashion, the same need for
coherence and unity. In these sealed worlds, man can reign and have knowledge at last. ~ Albert Camus

You told us this place was haunted. How haunted is it?"

Paul cast a quick glance at the house. "I'm not sure. When they found the bodies twenty years ago, the place became off-limits. That was horror enough. There were whispers of strange stuff going on before then, but no one is alive who could verify a thing. Somehow, an urban legend grew about the whole island. "Don't go near haunted Ormsby Island. They say a reporter went out alone one night just after the mass murder had been discovered and never came back. Since anyone who had committed the murders was either dead or gone at that point, it had to be the island itself that offed the reporter. Mitch, Ormsby Island isn't even on most maps of Charleston Harbor. Locals will turn away the moment you even say its name. ~ Hunter Shea

Disheartened, enraptured, and strangely lightheaded, Grady emerged from the trees and walked back through town to the island bridge, his ankles and hands marked up with thorn scratches. ~ Molly Ringle

The odd thing about 'Cripple of Inishmaan' is it's never actually been performed on the island. ~ Garry Hynes

The truth is, until you know any different, the island is enough.
Actually, I know different. And it's still enough. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I think one of the thing that makes a Kubrick film a great experience is the fact that he bends reality to his will and is so confident that he ends up creating something that is the island in the stream of pop culture and he takes a stand that's so firm and so confident and unyielding that it can't be ignored and I appreciate that. ~ Barry Ptolemy

Subect: Sigh.
Okay. Since we're on the subject...
Q. What is the Tsar of Russia's favorite fish?
A. Tsardines, of course.
Q. What does the son of a Ukranian newscaster and a U.S. congressman eat for Thanksgiving dinner on an island off the coast of Massachusetts?
A.?
-Ella

Subect: TG
A. Republicans.
Nah.I'm sure we'll have all the traditional stuff: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes. I'm hoping for apple pie. Our hosts have a cook who takes requests, but the island is kinda limited as far as shopping goes. The seven of us will probably spend the morning on a boat, then have a civilized chow-down. I predict Pictionary. I will win.
You?
-Alex

Subect: Re. TG
Alex,
I will be having my turkey (there ill be one, but it will be somewhat lost among the pumpkin fettuccine, sausage-stuffed artichokes, garlic with green beans, and at least four lasagnas, not to mention the sweet potato cannoli and chocolate ricotta pie) with at least forty members of my close family, most of whom will spend the entire meal screaming at each other. Some will actually be fighting, probably over football.

I am hoping to be seated with the adults. It's not a sure thing.

What's Martha's Vineyard like? I hear it's gorgeous. I hear it's favored by presidential types, past and present.
-Ella

Subject: Can I Have TG with You?
Please??? There's a 6a.m. flight off the island. I can be back in ~ Melissa Jensen

He's always been attracted to broken things. He was the kind of boy who talked the bad girls through their problems, who defended them and didn't take advantage. He was sensitive to his stuffed animals' feelings, rotating their position on his bed so that a new plush animal would occupy pride of place at his pillowside every night. Soon I became first and foremost on that pillow; princess of the island of misfit toys. ~ Jalina Mhyana

Time since my escape ticked by and the voices came to me. God Almighty and the Devil coaxed me onwards and stated that the edge of the forest was close at hand. The voices told me that they would search for me by air and put screws on the points and docks where there was access to the mainland. The voices also told me that the three prisons on the island would go on lock down until I was caught or wasn't. ~ Stephen Richards

The couple's physical decline became increasingly obvious with each passing hour. The old man, immobile in bed; Mrs. Adler, all alone, watching as the love of her life - her great support - slipped away slowly as this ship sailed to the island that was to be our salvation. This was the only answer they could find at an age when all you could hope for was the peace to be able to say good-bye. ~ Armando Lucas Correa

But in fact I was like Ossie, in this one regard: I was consumed by a helpless, often furious love for a ghost. Every rock on the island, every swaying tree branch or dirty dish in our house was like a word in a a sentence that I could read about my mother. All objects and events on our island, every single thing that you could see with your eyes, were like clues that I could use to reinvent her: would our mom love this thing, would she hate it? For a second I luxuriated in a real hatred of my brother. ~ Karen Russell

So what'd we miss?" Jade pulled a chair from the next table and wedged it between Kale and Dax.
"We were just about to vote you off the island," I said, stirring my coffee.
"You've got my vote," Kiernan said enthusiastically, glaring at Jade. ~ Jus Accardo

As I remarked before, the Asiatic elephant is smaller than the African, which is frequently twelve feet high, and its tusks are in proportion. In the island of Ceylon a certain number of animals are found deprived of these appendages, but "mucknas," which is the name given them, are rare on the mainland of India. Behind ~ Jules Verne

There is a beehive under every pot of honey on the island of Manhattan, ~ Adriana Trigiani

The oceans never stop ... the wind never finishes. Sometimes it disappears, but only to gather momentum from somewhere else, returning to fling itself at the island ... Existence here is on the scale of giants. Time is in the millions of years; rocks which from a distance look like dice cast against the shore are boulders hundreds of feet wide, licked round by millennia ... ~ M.L. Stedman

for things go briskly on the island, come the pirates on their track. We hear them before they are seen, and it is always the same dreadful song: 'Avast belay, yo ho, heave to, A-pirating we go, And if we're parted by a shot We're sure to meet below!' A ~ J.M. Barrie

The great ocean, crooning its lullaby with one unceasing melody, lapped the island to sleep with a thousand soft touches of its wave's white hands. The ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Judging by the deplorable state in which the garrison troops can often be found, alcohol is never in short supply. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for water. The island has only two tiny springs, so most drinking water has been collected during the rainy season and stored in cisterns for use in drier periods. ~ Anonymous

If this were a fairy tale, this would be the part where the fishboy appears and Diana shoots him through the heart. Because he is a tragic hero, he's our fucking Gatsby, and he lived for his fish and he has to die for his fish. He would never let my fake authority, condoning his abandonment, making up rules about what's okay just to save his life, convince him to give up his family. He would never leave.
He would know that without him, none of us will be as good. Me, without a friend; and the fish, without a brother; and the island, without a story; and Diana, without her something real, we will all be a little bit less than we were before we knew him.
So he wouldn't leave. Not until I could come with him. And I have never been less able to leave than I am now.
But this isn't a fairy tale, and he doesn't appear. We stand here for a long time.
He really left.
Because it was all that we could do. ~ Hannah Moskowitz

The racket reverberates down the second staircase and spills out into the kitchen, and the two screeching, running kids who are making it do laps around the island like a fucked-up Hunger Games version of ring-around-the-rosy. ~ Emma Chase

The Story Girl was written in 1910 and published in 1911. It was the last book I wrote in my old home by the gable window where I had spent so many happy hours of creation. It is my own favourite among my books, the one that gave me the greatest pleasure to write, the one whose characters and landscape seem to me most real. All the children in the book are purely imaginary. The old "King Orchard" was a compound of our old orchard in Cavendish and the orchard at Park Corner. "Peg Bowen" was suggested by a half-witted, gypsy-like personage who roamed at large for many years over the Island and was the terror of my childhood. ~ L.M. Montgomery

And I'll gaze across the chasm to the other side of the island, where I can still sometimes catch sight of a curly-haired urchin running joyously through the tall purple grass, her faithful dog at her heels. ~ Michelle Cooper

The firstdown team for this planet must have had a fixation on animals. Horse, Bear, Eagle. For three days we were creeping down the east coast of Equus over an irregular coastline called the Mane. We've spent the last day making the crossing of a short span of the Middle Sea to a large island called Cat Key. Today we are offloading passengers and freight at Felix, the "major city" of the island. ~ Dan Simmons

Lindsey looked at him coyly "Grilling is your specialty?" She shook her head. "You really had me fooled."
He set the platter on the island, joined her near the sprawling sectional sofa in the living area, and took her in his arms. She'd never get tired of that feeling.
"Had you fooled how?" he asked.
"I thought kissing was your specialty."
Carden captivated her with his sultry gave. "Grilling ... Kissing ... " He brushed his lips over hers, teasingly light and feathery. "Take your pick, darlin;," he said in a low whisper, pulling her closer ...
"Stay tuned," he said with a rasp in his voice. "I've got a couple other specialties, too. ~ Tracy March

Lightning flashed around the island; thunder played its favorite game of scaring the crap out of all the shivering mortals on the earth below. ~ Pat Conroy

Apparently tired of waiting for clear direction from Congress, the people of Puerto Rico have used the tools provided by their own local constitution to schedule a vote for Dec. 13 on the status of the island. ~ Dick Thornburgh

He was hungry, and his first thought was to collect a dozen or two gulls' eggs to make a meal. But embryo chicks were forming in all of them. So he rowed out to do some fishing and was more succesful. He lived on fish from day to day and sang and whiled the time away and ruled over the island. When it rained he too shelter beneath a splendid overhangig rock. At night he slept on a patch of grass and the sun never set. ~ Knut Hamsun

As they prepared themselves to go ashore no one doubted in theory that at least a certain percentage of them would remain on the island dead, once they set foot on it. But no one expected to be one of these. Still it was an awesome thought and as the first contingents came struggling up on deck in full gear to form up, all eyes instinctively sought out immediately this island where they were to be put, and left, and which might possibly turn out to be a friend's grave. ~ James Jones

Don Juan speaks of the island of the tonal as something that's in the middle of the ocean ... the nagual. ~ Frederick Lenz

While Haiti has recently celebrated more than 200 years of independence from French colonial rule, the citizens of the island remain vulnerable to poverty, poor health, and political chaos. ~ Eliot Engel

For the great eras in the history of the development of all the arts have been eras not of increased feeling or enthusiasm in feeling for art, but of new technical improvements primarily and specially. The discovery of marble quarries in the purple ravines of Pentelicus and on the little low-lying hills of the island of Paros gave to the Greeks the opportunity for that intensified vitality of action, that more sensuous and simple humanism, to which the Egyptian sculptor working laboriously in the hard porphyry and rose-coloured granite of the desert could not attain. The splendour of the Venetian school began with the introduction of the new oil medium for painting. The progress in modern music has been due to the invention of new instruments entirely, and in no way to an increased consciousness on the part of the musician of any wider social aim. ~ Oscar Wilde

As evening approached, I came down from the heights of the island, and I liked then to go and sit on the shingle in some secluded spot by the lake; there the noise of the waves and the movement of the water, taking hold of my senses and driving all other agitation from my soul, would plunge me into delicious reverie in which night often stole upon me unawares. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

From Arawaks he later met on Hispaniola (the island of the Dominican Republic and Haiti) he learned of other people to the south, whom the Spanish called the Cariba or Caniba, from which we get the words "Caribbean" and "cannibal. ~ Lincoln Paine

Later the island was turned into a leper colony, a lunatic asylum, and a naval base. The government had only recently turned the island back into a prison. ~ Nelson Mandela

The grandeur of the opera house thrilled Laura too. It took thousand of employees to keep such a vast place running. There were hundreds of artists involved behind the scenes - stagehands, electricians, set builders, property masters, costumers, dressers, wigmakers, and milliners.
There is a beehive under every pot of honey on the island of Manhattan, thought Enza. ~ Adriana Trigiani

Never before has anyone figured out how to rent out American foreign policy, how to convert the position of secretary of state into a personal money machine. Hillary, with Bill's help, figured out not only how to shake down Russian oligarchs and Canadian billionaires by offering them control of America's uranium assets; she also figured out how to rob the island nation of Haiti in the wake of the 2010 earthquake. It's one thing to rip off the world's rich; it takes a special kind of chutzpah to steal from the poorest of the poor. ~ Dinesh D'Souza

Ishbel read maps like storybooks. She was getting off the island, and no one was going to stop her. That was all just romance, just fairytales, because anyone can leave the island. Since they built the bridge, leaving should be as easy as sticking your keys in the car ignition. But leaving is never easy. ~ Kirsty Logan

At last, I came to the Lost Dog's Home which my map told me marked teh turnoff to Shelly Beach.
You could hear some of the dogs barking, calling out for their owners to come and get them away from there ...
I hated going to those places because I always wanted to take all the dogs home or let them go free, even though I knew most of them would go straight out and be hit by a car or starve to death. I sometimes wished I could have a place where I could take those dogs and let them live. The Phantom had this sanctuary called Eden and all the animals there lived together, even tigers and baby deer, because they'd never learned it's kill or be killed. The maneaters ate fish out of the lagoon and the island was protected by the Bandar poison pygmies and by the piranha fish in the lagoon. I would have liked there to be such a place for pets who had been dumped of abandoned. They could feed the owners to the piranha. ~ Isobelle Carmody

Dear Mama,
I hope this letter finds you well. It contains all my love and affection. (It also contains all my questions about how you could ever have loved a man like Professor Miller.)
You asked about where I live. I cannot believe I haven't mentioned it, but I suppose I'm so used to it now I don't think of it. The dorms are small and plain, but as a student I don't need much more. (I cannot afford the dorms. I do not live in them.) The food is dreadful, all heavy meat and sauce. I miss fruit! (I am always hungry; a supper with a strange man was the fullest my stomach has been since I got here.)
As I have mentioned in every letter, my professors are all interesting and I take copious notes during lectures. (If you do not bring up my father, I am certainly not going to offer you information on that louse of a man.) The course work is challenging but I am excelling. (I have to be perfect so they can find no excuse to dock my grades.)
I have delivered Aunt Nani's package to Jacabo. He was so happy to receive it, and I take tea with him once a week. It is a great comfort to speak Melenese with someone. (I live in the hotel where Jacabo works. He saved me when I realized I could not afford room and board at the school. I work long, hard hours in the evenings to earn a tiny hole of a servant's room and whatever scraps of food are left over.)
Please give everyone my love and tell them how much I am learning to bring back to the island as a teacher. (I will ~ Kiersten White

THANKSGIVING DAY. Let us all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji. ~ Mark Twain

The baby's eyes were dark, almost black, and when I nursed her in the middle of the night, she'd stare at me with a stunned, shipwrecked look as if my body were the island she'd washed up on. ~ Jenny Offill

There was no sign of Plato, and I was told later that he had gone to live in his Republic, where he was cheerfully submitting to his own Laws. [ ... ] None of the Stoics were present. Rumour had it that they were still clambering up the steep hill of Virtue [ ... ]. As for the Sceptics, it appeared that they were extremely anxious to get there, but still could not quite make up their minds whether or not the island really existed. ~ Lucian Of Samosata

There were letters on the bottom, letters he'd seen before, on the ship that had carried him from London, the ship that had broken up on the reef that guarded the island. The letters said: NEVER LAND.
Peter looked at it. And then he looked around him
at the lagoon; at the rock where the mermaids (Mermaids!) lounged; at the palm-fringed beach; at the tinkling fairy flitting over his head; at his new friends the Mollusks; at the jungle-covered, pirate-infested mountains looming over it all.
Then he looked at the board again, and he laughed out loud.
'That's exactly where I am,' he said. ~ Dave Barry

The whole history between Haiti and the Dominican Republic is complicated. We share the island of Hispaniola, and Haiti occupied the Dominican Republic for twenty-two years after 1804 for fear that the French and Spanish would come back and reinstitute slavery. So we have this unique situation of being two independent nations on the same island, but with each community having its own grievance. ~ Edwidge Danticat

DCL entered into a 99-year lease agreement with the Bahamian government in 1999, giving the cruise line the rights to develop what was then known as Gorda Cay. Renamed Castaway Cay by Disney, the island measures about 1.5 square miles and sits in the Atlantic Ocean, roughly 80 miles north-northeast of Nassau, at about the same latitude as Fort Lauderdale, Florida (100 miles to the west). ~ Len Testa

She's never liked us much, not since she complained that there were no boys on the island, and Reese gave her the blankest look I've ever seen and said, "Plenty of girls, though. ~ Rory Power

Two against thirty two," Niten said. "Good odds."
"I've never fought the Spartoi before," Prometheus admitted. "I only know of them by their reputation - and it's fearsome."
"We have an equal reputation," Niten said.
"Well, you do," the Elder said. "I was never that much of a fighter. And after the fall of the island, I rarely took up weapons again."
"Fighting is a skill you never forget," Niten said, a touch of sadness in his voice. "I fought my first duel when I was thirteen. I've been fighting ever since."
"But you are more than just a swordsman," Prometheus said. "You are an artist, a sculptor and a writer."
"No man is ever just one thing," Niten answered. His shoulder dropped and his short sword appeared in his left hand, water droplets sparkling from the blade. "But first and foremost, I was always a warrior." He jabbed his sword into the fog and stirred it like liquid. ~ Michael Scott

Let's see, today is Thor's Day the sixteenth." "You mean Thursday?" "That's what I said. The island will rise on the full moon six days from now, on the twenty-second, which is Woden's Day." "Wednesday?" I asked. "That's what I said. ~ Rick Riordan

Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in something of a solemn expectancy, the two animals passed through the broken tumultuous water and moored their boat at the flowery margin of the island. ~ Kenneth Grahame

As the people of Shishmaref lose their natural hunting grounds to the warming sea, they are forced to buy U.S. canned goods from the only local store on the island; however, this is not their natural diet and cannot sustain them throughout the year. ~ Amy J. Berg

His mouth opens. From inside him comes a slow stream, without breath, without interruption. It flows up through his body and out upon me; it passes through the cabin, through the wreck; washing the cliffs and shores of the island, it runs northward and southward to the ends of the earth. Soft and cold, dark and unending, it beats against my eyelids, against the skin of my face. ~ J.M. Coetzee

The beauty of the island [Bora Bora} wasn't limited to its turquoise waters or green hills. That was mere surface beauty. The real awe of the place was evident in its stories. There was one waiting beyond every curve of the shore. ~ Sarah Jio

He never should have left the island. He'd been there with Diana and Penny. He could have tossed Penny off a cliff and been fine on the island. Decent food, a beautiful mansion, electricity, and a soft bed with Diana in it.
What had he been thinking, leaving the island?
He missed Diana busting him. He missed her snarky voice. He missed her eye rolls and that skeptical look she had where she'd half close her eyes and look at him like he was too dumb to merit her full attention. He'd have killed, or at least injured, anyone else who treated him like that. But she wasn't anyone else.
He missed her hair. Her neck. Her breasts.
She understood him. She loved him, in her own way. And if he had listened to her, he'd still be on the island. Somehow he would have found some fuel to keep the lights on there. Probably. And the food would have run out and then they'd have starved, but hey, this was the FAYZ, where all you could really hope to do was delay the pain. ~ Michael Grant

The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two. Let us pretend to lie here among the sugar-cane and watch them as they steal by in single file, each with his hand on his dagger. ~ J.M. Barrie

Of all the islands he'd visited, two stood out. The island of the past, he said, where the only time was past time and the inhabitants were bored and more or less happy, but where the weight of illusion was so great that the island sank a little deeper into the river every day. And the island of the future, where the only time was the future, and the inhabitants were planners and strivers, such strivers, said Ulises, that they were likely to end up devouring one another. ~ Roberto Bolano

Mrs. Brown, whose primary job on the island ~ Pat Conroy

Why slum it where people were burdened by yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that? By history? Here, on the Island, they had learnt how to deal with history, how to sling it carelessly on your back and stride out across the download with the breeze in your face. ~ Julian Barnes

Beyond the typhoon shelters, ships slid past them, lighted buildings on the march, and the junks hobbled in their wakes. Inland, the Island whined and clanged and throbbed, and the huge slums twinkled like jewel boxes opened by the deceptive beauty of the night. Presiding over them, glimpsed between the dipping finger of the masts, sat the black Peak, Victoria, her sodden face shrouded with moonlit skeins; the goddess, the freedom, the lure of all that wild striving in the valley. They ~ John Le Carre

He thought: Best of an island is once you get there - you can't go any farther ... you've come to the end of things ... . He knew, suddenly, that he didn't want to leave the island. VI ~ Agatha Christie

RIH, we love you, Rih we are proud of you- Many go away and forget their roots- But you are not one of them at all-Every Crop over, you return to the island to fete-And meet up with fans you haven't already met.
You travel the world-representing your country-Putting 246 down in
World History... ~ Charmaine J.Forde

It begins, too, with a star prophecy.
But there are so many prophecies read on the island of Lear that to say so is as good as saying it begins with every breath. ~ Tessa Gratton

Did she go postal?" Russell grins at him, "You know, for pullin' her portal on the island and sendin' her to your safe house before the fight?"
"Define postal?" Zephyr counters, his brows pulling together further.
"Insanely angry," Russell says.
"Yes," Zephyr nods his head adamantly, pointing at him. "She has not called me 'sweetie' since."
"Oooo," Russell says, ducking his head and wrinkling his nose. "Doghouse. ~ Amy A. Bartol

When Franci walked in the house a few hours later, she encountered one of the biggest messes she'd ever seen. Newspapers were spread over the island in the kitchen, covered with pumpkin guts. She could see the spills on the floor - seeds that had gotten away - and three pumpkins were in the middle of the carving process on the dining room table. One huge, one large and one small. The pumpkin family. "Nuts," Sean said. "You're home early. We were going to surprise you. We've gotta have jack-o'-lanterns for Halloween!" "Mama!" Rosie shouted excitedly. Then pointing, she said, "Daddy, Mommy, Rosie!" "Were you going to surprise me with the cleanup?" she asked hopefully. "Of course," he said. "Maybe you should just go to your room and read or something until I have a chance to get things under control." "I'll go change and then come and help," she said. ~ Robyn Carr

Be wary of what I might learn. "No. Do you think I should?" "I don't know. Maybe," she replied, and in my mind I saw her in her high-backed bar stool at the island in the kitchen where the kids scarfed down their Lucky Charms before walking down the hill to school. Then, before I could answer, she went on, "It will be weird if we're related to the woman in the photo." "In what way?" "She's so ... " "Go ahead," I said. "She's not like us. Even if she is related to us, she's not like us. I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just that she's from a different world. ~ Chris Bohjalian

A.Coward," he repeated, and I briefly considered picking up the vase in the center of the island and throwing it at him."Not making a choice is the coward's way out. You love both of them. I get that. But you don't feel the same kind of love for both of them, and the sooner you accept that the better. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout