The Scar Quotes

I didn't know that would be the last time I'd see him, his neck scar lit blue by the diner's neon marquee. To see that little comma again, to put my mouth there, let my shadow widen the scar until, at last, there was no scar to be seen at all, just a vast and equal dark sealed by my lips. A comma superimposed by a period the mouth so naturally makes. Isn't that the saddest thing in the world, Ma? A comma forced to be a period? ~ Ocean Vuong

The short one with the scar shifted from foot to foot. "Yeah, this is Russell," he motioned at the Indian, "and this is Newt." I almost said, "Newt," aloud, but figured we had enough problems without me being a smart-ass. And people say I don't know when to keep my mouth shut. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

I have walked by stalls in the market-place where books, dog-eared and faded from their purple, have burst with a white hosanna. I have seen people crowned with a double crown, holding in either hand the crook and flail, the power and the glory. I have understood how the scar be­comes a star, I have felt the flake of fire fall, miraculous and pentecostal. My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are grey faces that peer over my shoulder. ~ William Golding

I had this dream about you last night. We were still married. I was giving you a haircut, like I always did, being careful to trim around the scar on the back of your head. I'm sorry I sometimes forgot it and left you with a bald spot. And, I'm sorry we didn't work out. But you look pretty happy on Instagram. ~ Crystal Woods

We are all refugees, and we have the scar to prove it. ~ Donald O'Donovan

can. "New York City, huh?" "Yup." She rolled up her sleeves and dipped down into the water. And that was when I noticed the scar. "Jeez. What's that?" It started just inside her left elbow and ran down to the wrist like a long pink twisted worm. She saw where I was looking. "Accident," she said. "We were in a car." Then she looked back into the water where you could see her reflection shimmering. "Jeez." But then she didn't seem to want to talk much after that. "Got any more of 'em?" I don't know why scars are always so fascinating to boys, but they are, it's a fact of life, and I just couldn't help it. I couldn't shut up about it yet. Even though I knew she wanted me to, even though ~ Jack Ketchum

Everyone has to start somewhere,' he says, his eyes dark and smoldering, his fingers seeking the scar on my face.
The one on my forehead. The one that's hidden under my bangs. The one he has no way of knowing about.
'Even Picasso had a teacher.' He smiles, withdrawing his hand and the warmth that came with it, returning to his painting, as I remind myself to breathe. ~ Alyson Noel

But you can see it, Harriet, a look in his eyes, an alertness, as if somewhere behind the disease, behind the scar tissue, behind the fog of disassociation, Bernard is all there, he's just lost his ability to communicate. Like somebody turned off his volume. You're certain he can see everything that is transpiring with crystal clarity, and he can't do a goddamn thing about it. ~ Jonathan Evison

I had never wanted attention, and now I was
purposely inviting it. As I had told Dr Duverger, I had little vanity, and yet one recent
morning I realized that I was avoiding looking at my own reflection, because it was
disturbing. Did I wish to go through life like this? Yes, the scar was a horrible memento
of what I had done to my father, but now I questioned whether I needed it to be so
obvious. The actual weight was within me. I carried it as though it were a heavy
earthenware pot of water. I had to walk through my days carefully, so as not to let it spill
over. It was my own personal burden, not necessary to be shared with all who looked at
me. ~ Linda Holeman

I think you should leave [the scar]. [...] It's not as bad as you think. It will look better once it is healed. And besides, you already have a classical beauty. This gives you a romantic beauty as well. ~ April Adams

Color fills her cheeks, and I think it again: that Johanna Reyes might still be beautiful. Except now I think that she isn't just beautiful in spite of the scar, she's somehow beautiful with it, like Lynn with her buzzed hair, like Tobias with the memories of his father's cruelty that he wears like armor, like my mother in her plain gray clothing. ~ Veronica Roth

Rhy clenched his teeth, fighting back a groan, but his stillness must have betrayed him; he felt Alucard smile against his skin. The man's fingers drifted to his tunic, deftly unbuttoning his collar so his kisses could continue downward, but Rhy felt him hesitate at the sight of the scar over his heart. "Someone has wounded you," he whispered into Rhy's collarbone. "Shall I make it better? ~ Victoria Schwab

When you give me art - give me something that reaches inside of my core and twists, taking the very breath that sustains me away.
Give me something that wakens me from my lethargy.
Give me something that causes me to ponder and question all that I have come to know; due to my circumstances that I have been allotted in this life.
Give me something that causes me to question my pride and arrogance of knowing that I am right in my thoughts, beliefs and perceptions.
Shake me: as if you had grabbed me and pushed me against the wall - shattering all of my preconceived notions; causing me to break out of the box that I have put others in.
Give me something that scraped over the scar tissue of wounds that you carry within, opening them afresh and causing you pain - real core pain - pain that you had pushed down; pain that now resides in your closet of skeletons.
When you give me art, give me you, or give me nothing at all…
©2014 Suzanne Steele ~ Suzanne Steele

He leans down, his dark eyes simmering, and kisses me until neither of us wants to come up for air. Only the ringing of the bell tears us apart.

"Damn bell," he says softly. He places his hand along the scar that rides my face from temple to chin. A slash of purple, it's never going to disappear. But it doesn't bother me. ~ Elsie Chapman

-You know how to call me
although such a noise now
would only confuse the air
Neither of us can forget
the steps we danced
the words you stretched
to call me out of dust
Yes I long for you
not just as a leaf for weather
or vase for hands
but with a narrow human longing
that makes a man refuse
any fields but his own
I wait for you at an
unexpected place in your journey
like the rusted key
or the feather you do not pick up.-

-I WILL NEVER FIND THE FACES
FOR ALL GOODBYES I'VE MADE.-


For Anyone Dressed in Marble
The miracle we all are waiting for
is waiting till the Parthenon falls down
and House of Birthdays is a house no more
and fathers are unpoisoned by renown.
The medals and the records of abuse
can't help us on our pilgrimage to lust,
but like whips certain perverts never use,
compel our flesh in paralysing trust.
I see an orphan, lawless and serene,
standing in a corner of the sky,
body something like bodies that have been,
but not the scar of naming in his eye.
Bred close to the ovens, he's burnt inside.
Light, wind, cold, dark -- they use him like a bride.


I Had It for a Moment

I had it for a moment
I knew why I must thank you
I saw powerful governing men in black suits
I saw them undressed
in the arms of young mistresses
the men more nake ~ Leonard Cohen

I covered the scar with concealer every day because I wanted my body to be a flawless figurine, but this blemish would be with me forever. ~ Scarlet Risque

Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dess? I though that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. OKay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on dying. A scar means, I survivied. ~ Chris Cleave

You'd think that philisophy might have put the kibosh on some of the Freddy Krueger stuff," I mused, tilting my jaw until I felt the pull of the scar.
"And well it might, if you ever let on that it hurt."
I'm inclined to agree with that, too, but there's a limit. "So I should start going strapless."
"DOn't be snotty. ~ Melissa Jensen

When I was a kid, I was at a bowling alley and I ran into a soda machine. I still have the scar on my right eyebrow obviously. ~ Luke Perry

The scar said - that which is written in the flesh is irrefutable. This is the mark of a man. This is what it takes. ~ Brian Turner

At the base of her ankle is a deep, ugly scar she got when a car ran over her foot when she was six years old. That was in a small town in Bangladesh. Thus, even today, she hesitates superstitiously before crossing the road, and is painfully shy of walking distances. Her fears make her laughable. The scar is printed on her skin like a radiant star. ~ Amit Chaudhuri

It is the way of the people," he responded again and again. "I will not interferre.Howling Wolf did what he thought would keep his wife."
Jesse was outraged, "And if I looked at another handsome brave,would Rides the Wind cut off my nose?"
Rides the Wind stared at her solemnly. "God's book has said that you must be faithful to me.We do not live as Howling Wolf and Prairie Flower." After a moment he added, "And if you were unfaithful to me, I would cut off your beautiful red hair, not your nose.For it is your hair that makes you beautiful."
Jesse refused to be distracted from the conversation. Finally,Rides the Wind became exasperated with her insistence. "Walks the Fire,it is enough," he almost shouted. "You say that Howling Wolf must be punished. He will bepunished. For all the days of his life he will have to look at the scar where he has hurt his wife.All the days of his life he will have to endure the sadness he has caused. And all the days of her life, Prairie Flower will remember when she was young and beautiful. White EAgle has left.It is over. We must pray for them, for they do not have God to help them. But I will not punish Howling Wolf for going what is his right among the Lakota. He will answer to God for what he has done. He does not have to answer to me. ~ Stephanie Grace Whitson

What else do you want to know?' he asked. Possessed by morbid curiosity, her eyes darted to the scar that cut just over his ear. She'd found it shortly after they met, while he lay unconscious in the grass. He didn't need to ask what had caught her attention. 'I got that in a fight against imperial soldiers. Ask me why.' She shook her head, unable to bring herself to do it. The cocoon of warmth that had enveloped the entire afternoon unwound itself in an instant. 'Are you having second thoughts about being here with me?' He planted a hand into the grass, edging closer. 'No. I trust you.' He was giving her all the time in the world to shove him away, to rise, to flee. Her heartbeat quickened as she watched him. Moving ever so slowly, he braced an arm on either side of her, his fingers sinking into the moss. 'I asked you to come with me.' Despite her words, she dug her heels into the ground and inched backwards. 'I feel safe with you.' 'I can see that.' He affected a lazy smile as she retreated until her back pressed against the knotted roots that crawled along the ground. His boldness was so unexpected, so exciting. She held her breath and waited. Her pulse jumped when he reached for her. She'd been imagining this moment ever since their first duel and wondering whether it would take another swordfight for him to come near her again. His fingers curled gently against the back of her neck, giving her one last chance to escape. Then he lowered his mouth and kissed her.

Jeannie Lin

I would not willingly peel back the scar tissue protecting the deepest chambers of my heart and reveal the bruised hollows pooled with the blood of old wounds – the terror comes just thinking about it – but now, facing darkness I am left with no choice.
I love you, and because of that am going to try and raise the dead. – Louise Bell Closson, How It Ends ~ Laura Wiess

The scar on my forehead is from running through a plate-glass panel when I was 15. I had 27 stitches, which took two hours. ~ Alan Hansen

Pain jabbed Janco where the lower half of his right ear used to be. He rubbed the scar. "Now, I'm not a genius - "
"Got that right," Ari mumbled. ~ Maria V. Snyder

The scar will always be there. It will always be a part of me, but it's not who I am. Wounds can heal with time, Persephone. And those scars are only a small part of who you can be. ~ Layla Harding

Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shore, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

To prevent the formation of fibrous scar tissue in the hamstrings, it is essential to reeducate the muscles as soon as possible. A week after a tear, you must perform gentle stretches for the back of the thighs. The goal is to stretch the injured muscles and especially to soften the scar so that it doesn't tear when you resume training. ~ Frederic Delavier

There's no way in hell I'm getting out of this bed and going for a run, he murmured onto her head. She chuckled quietly. His hands grazed lower, down her back, not even stumbling over the scar tissue. He'd kissed every scar on her back, on her entire body, last night. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Maybe it was that I was broken. Maybe it was just that I was out of my mind. But it occurred to me that I was going to kiss him. The thought just arrived, certain knowledge, delivered from some greater, more knowledgeable place. I was going to kiss him. Stephen would not want to kiss me. He would back up in horror. And yet, I was still going to do it. I reached over, and I put my hand against his chest, then I moved closer. I could feel just the very tips of the gentle stubble on his cheek brushing against my skin.

"Rory," he said. But it was a quiet protest, and it went nowhere.

For the first few seconds, he didn't move - he accepted the kiss like you might accept a spoonful of medicine. Then I heard it, a sigh, like he had finally set down a heavy weight.

"I was pretty sure we were both kind of terrified, but I was completely sure that we were both doing this. We kissed slowly, very deliberately, coming together and then pulling apart and looking at each other. Then each kiss got longer, and then it didn't stop. Stephen put his hand just under the edge of my shirt, holding it on the spot where the scar was. Sometimes the skin around the scar got cold - now it was warm. Now it was alive. ~ Maureen Johnson

Use your finger to trace the scar upon my chest- I lied - it wasn't a knife wound, but a scrape from a nail sliding under a fence to see you ... ~ John Geddes

But that can't work, can it?" Said Richard. "If we do that, then this won't have happened. Don't we generate all sorts of paradoxes?"
Reg stirred himself from thought. "No worse than many that exist already," he said. "If the universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don't. It's like a human body, you see. A few cuts and bruises here and there don't hurt it. Not even major surgery if its done properly. Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make. That isn't to say if you get involved in a paradox a few things won't strike you as being very odd, but if you've got through life without that already happening to you, then I don't know which universe you've been living in, but it isn't this one ~ Douglas Adams

Juliet laughed. "I am not the first woman to tell you that she finds you attractive."

"No," he said, again almost as if he was thinking out loud. "But you're the first to lay it out like that. And the first with the scar."

"I'm not," she said, with absolute confidence. "I might be the first to say it, but no, Saywer, other women have found that hot too. I promise you. ~ Erin Nicholas

All right." Shimmering droplets on her eyelashes, stars caught in transition. "But will you replace it with something for me?"
"Anything." His body was hers.
Brushing her fingers over his lips, she said, "You gave me an eagle. I want to give you one, too." A tender kiss pressed to the scar. "I want us to fly together. ~ Nalini Singh

In the car inching its way down Fifth Avenue, toward Bergdorf Goodman and this glamorous party, I looked back on my past with a new understanding. This sickness, the "endo-whatever," had stained so much - my sense of self, my womanhood, my marriage, my ability to be present. I had effectively missed one week of each month every year of my life since I was thirteen, because of the chronic pain and hormonal fluctuations I suffered during my period. I had lain in bed, with heating pads and hot-water bottles, using acupuncture, drinking teas, taking various pain medications and suffering the collateral effects of them. I thought of all the many tests I missed in various classes throughout my education, the school dances, the jobs I knew I couldn't take as a model, because of the bleeding and bloating as well as the pain (especially the bathing suit and lingerie shoots, which paid the most). How many family occasions was I absent from? How many second or third dates did I not go on? How many times had I not been able to be there for others or for myself? How many of my reactions to stress or emotional strife had been colored through the lens of chronic pain? My sense of self was defined by this handicap. The impediment of expected pain would shackle my days and any plans I made.

I did not see my own womanhood as something positive or to be celebrated, but as a curse that I had to constantly make room for and muddle through. Like the scar on my arm, my reproductive syst ~ Padma Lakshmi

So we are nearing the end. The right-hand, still untasted part of the novel, which, during our delectable reading, we would lightly feel, mechanically testing whether there was still plenty left (and our fingers were always gladdened by the placid, faithful thickness) has suddenly, for no reason at all, become quite meager: a few minutes of quick reading, already downhill, and–O horrible! The heap of cherries, whose mass had seemed to us such a ruddy and glossy black, had suddenly become discrete drupes: the one over there with the scar is a little rotten, and this one has shriveled and dried up around its stone (and the very last one is inevitably hard and unripe) O horrible! ~ Vladimir Nabokov

I touched Loki's chest, running my fingers over the bumps of his scar. I didn't know why exactly, but I felt compelled to, as if the scar connected us somehow.
"You just couldn't wait to get me naked, could you, Princess?" Loki asked tiredly. I started to pull my hand back, but he put his own hand over it, keeping it in pace.
"No,I-I was checking for wounds," I stumbled. I wouldn't meet his gaze.
"I'm sure." He moved his thumb, almost caressing my hand, until it hit my ring. "What's that?" He tried to sit up to see it, so I lifted my hand, showing him the emerald-encrusted oval on my finger. "Is that a wedding ring?"
"No, engagement." I lowered my hand, resting it on the bed next to him. "I'm not married yet."
"I'm not too late, then." He smiled and settled back in the bed.
"Too late for what?" I asked.
"To stop you, of course." Still smiling, he closed his eyes.
"Is that why you're here?" I asked, failing to point out how near we were to my nuptials.
"I told you why I'm here," Loki said.
"What happened to you, Loki?" I asked, my voice growing thick when I thought about what he had to have gone through to get all those marks and bruises.
"Are you crying?" Loki asked and opened his eyes.
"No, I'm not crying." I wasn't, but my eyes were moist.
"Don't cry." He tried to sit up, but he winced when he lifted his head, so I put my hand gently on his chest to keep him down.
"You need to rest," I said.
"I will ~ Amanda Hocking

How did you find me?" he said, anger creasing his brow.
I pushed his hair back to run a finger over the scar Al had given him. "How do you think? He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake."
From the corner, Al shifted his tune. "So be good, or I'll rip your fucking head off ~ Kim Harrison

Along my body, waking while I sleep,
Sharp to the kiss, cold to the hand as snow,
The scar of this encounter like a sword ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Blue Squills
How many million Aprils came
Before I ever knew
How white a cherry bough could be,
A bed of squills, how blue!
And many a dancing April
When life is done with me,
Will lift the blue flame of the flower
And the white flame of the tree.
Oh burn me with your beauty, then,
Oh hurt me, tree and flower,
Lest in the end death try to take
Even this glistening hour.
O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees,
O sunlit white and blue,
Wound me, that I, through endless sleep,
May bear the scar of you. ~ Sara Teasdale

The yellow eyes had fallen from the tired star. Lorq's face erupted about the scar at some antic from the Mouse that Katin had missed.
Rage, Katin pondered. Rage. Yes, he is laughing. But how is anyone supposed to distinguish between laughter and rage in that face?
But the others were laughing too.
Yet some way, somehow, we do. ~ Samuel R. Delany

He didn't need to get up and look in the ornate, gilt-edged mirror over the massive fireplace to know that calamitous was the accurate word for his face. His right eye drooped, and the right half of his face was a gnarled mess of scar tissue. He was missing a small chunk of his nose on the right side, and he wore his hair shaggy to conceal the scar where his right ear used to be. But no amount of hairstyling could conceal the fact that his right arm was missing below the elbow. And his right leg, also injured in the blast, would always cause him to walk with a slight limp. Once a handsome young man, he was now a monster. A beast. ~ Katy Regnery

Even now,when she wanted to pummel him for having the audacity to follow her,she still had to admire the strenght and power he radiated.He would never be called handsome,or even good-looking,but there was something dangerous about Jayce that was incredibly sexy.Without even trying,he exuded a raw sexuality that made women stand up and take notice.With his shaved head and a scar that crisscrossed over his left eye,he had...a presence that refused to be ignored.The scar only added to that edginess.And he was directing all of that at her with a very heated stare. ~ Katie Reus

I knew it the moment I saw the scar, saw the flatness behind her eyes, like a pool that has lost all its depth.
Either she doesn't detect the challenge or she chooses to ignore it. ~ Lauren Oliver

There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini's cast Perseus. Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottom ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or whether it was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could certainly say. ~ Herman Melville

Your home, whatever it is, is where feel safe, or at least grounded. To be pushed out of t is to be marked with the scar of expulsion for the rest of your life. ~ Izzeldin Abuelaish

We were on Barrow Street now.
"Who is the man with the scar?" I said.
She shot me a glance, and her face hardened. "You saw him?"
"How could I miss? He was the real center of attention. Didn't you go to the opening at all?"
"No" She said. "And just because you saw him doesn't mean he was there. ~ Nicholas Christopher

As I got older, the scar reminded me of what people would choose to see if you let them. So I smiled at the attendant, and hoped that she saw a dimpled grin, and not the scar from a girl who started training with very sharp things from a very young age. ~ Roshani Chokshi

Maybe I would wake tomorrow and find that it had all been a dream, that Alexei was still alive and Mal was unhurt, that no one had tried to kill me, that I'd never met the King and Queen or seen the Apparat, or felt the Darkling's hand on the nape of my neck. Maybe I would wake to smell the campfires burning, safe in my own clothes, on my little cot, and I could tell Mal all about this strange and terrifying, but very beautiful, dream. I rubbed my thumb over the scar in my palm and heard Mal's voice saying, "We'll be okay, Alina. We always are." "I hope so, Mal," I whispered into my pillow and let my tears carry me to sleep. ~ Leigh Bardugo

On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived. ~ Chris Cleave

I'd only gone and whacked his front teeth out and they'd stuck in my hand, I still have the scar to this very day. A few weeks later, I got banged up for it; he never went to the police until two weeks later. Somebody had put him wise about getting compensation from the Criminal Injuries Board. Anyway, the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) kicked it in to touch as a 'no go' case. ~ Stephen Richards

You can't know how I dreaded appearing in school in those miserable poor box dresses. I was perfectly sure to be put down in a class next to the girl who first owned my dress, and she would whisper and giggle and point it out to the others. The bitterness of wearing your enemies cast-off clothes eats into your soul. If I wore silk stockings for the rest of my life, I don't believe I could obliterate the scar. ~ Jean Webster

He first make-up crew had three test runs, so by the time we were shooting, they got it down to three hours. They switched make-up crews for Eclipse and they never had any test runs, and they had to figure out what the other team had done, so the first day, I was in the chair for eight hours. But, they adjusted the scar from New Moon to Eclipse. The first time, there was more pullage on my face, so I had a hard time eating. It didn't hurt, but it was uncomfortable. ~ Tinsel Korey

So, what's the story?"
"No story. Just a nightmare."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning, heavy compression lines in his cartilage, severe bruising on his kidneys, liver and lower intestines. Fracture marks on his collar bone, tibia, radius, humerus, scapular, femur and every single one of his ribs have been broken. Don't even get me started on the concussive damage to his skull and brain tissue. Twenty-three percent of this boys body is scared for life. And yet, every organ is functioning normally and his neurological activity is above average. He's eighteen years old and he weights about two bills but remove the scar tissue and he'd weigh about a buck-ten. All in all, I say he lived inside a hydraulic car press, went through the Napoleonic wars and was on board the Hindenburg when it went down in flame and yet he's okay ... this boy just refuses to die. ~ S.L.J. Shortt

An old drinking buddy of mine had come home from a two-week binge with a rose tattooed on his arm. Around the blossom was written Fuck 'em all/and sleep till noon. His wife made him have it surgically removed, but she hated the scar even more. Every time he touched it, he grinned. Some years later she tried to remove the grin with a wine bottle, but she only knocked out a couple of teeth, which made the grin even more like a sneer. The part that I don't understand, though, is that they are still married. He is still grinning and she is still hating it. ~ James Crumley

Love is a sensual battle,once you get wounded, the scar is perennial. "True love is hard to find, harder to leave and impossible to Forget ~ Poise

Gus wondered if normal people carried their grief like he did. He wondered if normal people carried it for the rest of their lives like he thought he would. It didn't hurt as much as it once had, but sometimes the scar broke apart and it was all he could do to breathe through it. ~ T.J. Klune

I reached up with my finger and traced the scar over my eyebrow, remembering when that was the greatest hurt I'd ever known. ~ Sarah Dessen

Nothing is uglier than the sinner, nothing so leprous or fetid; the scar of his crimes is still raw, and he stinks like the cave of Hell. ~ Prudentius

Remember also that scars of all sorts are all right. Scars are wounds that have healed, not without a trace, but have healed nonetheless. Think of all the scar tissue around Christ's heart, Jesus our wounded healer. ~ William Sloane Coffin

I reach up and pull my hair back from my face, show him the scar from the accident. Unconsciously, he mimics my gesture, touches the same scar on his own forehead.
"It's just like mine," says my self, amazed. "How did you get it?" "The same as you. It is the same. We are the same."
A translucent moment. I didn't understand, and then I did, just like that. I watch it happen. I want to be both of us at once, feel again the feeling of losing the edges of my self, of seeing the admixture of future and present for the first time. But I'm too accustomed, too comfortable with it, and so I am left on the outside, remembering the wonder of being nine and suddenly seeing, knowing, that my friend, guide, brother was me. Me, only me. The loneliness of it. ~ Audrey Niffenegger

It's not the scar and it's abso-freakin-lutely not you."
I dropped my hand. "Yeah, right." I sagged against him a little. For being as little as he is, Frankie's really solid. "It's never me."
I felt his sigh against my shoulder blades. ~ Melissa Jensen

He lay stretched full length along his glorified cot, and while his bandage masked his shoulder, plenty of bare skin remained for her gaze to lap up. Bare, musclely skin. Skin that was somehow otherworldly in the soft glow of the flickering candlelight. Skin that made her want to touch, feel, and…and…lick. Until her gaze snagged on the scar-tattoo combo, and ice again crystallized in her gut. ~ Angela Quarles

In Ghana, it is said that a stranger is like water running over the ground after a rainstorm: it soon dries up and leaves behind no traces.

"Stranger" is the X that stands in for a proper name. It is the placeholder for the missing, the mark of the passage, the scar between native and citizen. It is both an end and a beginning. It announces the disappearance of the known world and the antipathy of the new one. And the longing and the loss redolent in the label were as much my inheritance as they were that of the enslaved. ~ Saidiya Hartman

I feel like I'm losing my damn mind, like your face has been carved into my heart, and I don't remember when, and I don't understand why, but the scar is there, and I can't get it to heal. It won't go. I can't make it fade. And you won't even look at me. ~ Alexandra Bracken

I had crossed the yard to him slowly, watching him draw closer, baffled by the way my heart was skittering around my chest. Then he'd picked me up and spun me in a circle, and I'd clung to him, breathing in his sweet, familiar smell, shocked by how much I'd missed him. Dimly, I'd been aware that I still had a shard of the blue cup in my hand, that it was digging into my palm, but I didn't want to let go.
When he finally set me down and ambled off to the kitchen to find his lunch, I stood there, my palm dripping blood, my head still spinning, knowing that everything had changed.
Ana Kuya had scoled me for getting blood on the clean kitchen floor. She'd bandaged my hand and told me it would heal. But I knew it would just go on hurting.
In the creaking silence of the cell, Mal kissed the scar on my palm, the wound made so long ago by the edge of that broken cup, a fragile thing I'd thought beyond repair. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I asked them: Does it hurt? And the scar people nodded, yes. But it felt somehow wonderful, they said. For one long second, it felt like the world was holding them close. ~ Aimee Bender

The scar she'd left her was so deep that it may take a thousand million years to heal. She couldn't pretend like nothing had happened. She couldn't shut her feelings, like how you shut a window blind; once you did it, all lights from the outside would be swept away from the room. It had taken her years to acknowledge the fact that she was unwanted; a subject of shame for her mother to sink in. And for sure, it would take her more than nine years to forget it all, in one go. ~ Diyar Harraz

His hands slid from around me, hovering over the scar encircling my neck that was still healing from the collar. He leaned away from me and the hardness carved its way back onto his face.
I took hold of his armor vest, pulling him back to me. But the guard was going back up over him, one thought at a time. "I don't belong to you." I repeated the words I said to him that night he pulled the stitches from my arm. This time, to lift the weight that pressed down onto him and silence whatever words were whispering in his mind.
And because a small part of me still wanted them to be true.
"Yes, you do." He pulled the hair back out of my face so he could look at me. "Like I belong to you. ~ Adrienne Young

I loved the hole in his jeans and the dirt on his bare feet and the scab on his elbow and the scar that laced through one eyebrow. ~ E. Lockhart

The scar on my chest, the beating of my heart, and the mountains that fostered my appreciation for the cold, hard, natural world - these were the few things that mattered. ~ Daniel Wallock

You leave the past baggages behind. Remove the dry bandage. Your wounds have been healed. The scar might stay forever but you are no longer bleeding. ~ Joena San Diego

Cheshire's fingers, cold and slightly damp, stroked down the scar on her cheek. She swallowed the shudder of revulsion at his touch.

"Yes," Cheshire said. "He marked you so that he would know you again, and know that you belong to him."

"I belong to no one," Alice said. ~ Christina Henry

Aingeal, there is only one thing on my body that's ten inches long, and if you'll recall, the scar is no' it. ~ Kresley Cole

I saw bubbling lava, and at the same moment I saw a reflection of a certain kind of inner turmoil. Because at the moment I looked into that crater, I slipped, and a large piece of volcanic rock took a hole out of my leg. The scar is still there 20, 30 years later. But it's one of those things that reminds you of the kind of risk or the kind of moment in order to push yourself. ~ Julie Taymor

Still in my coat and hat, I sank onto the stair to read the letter. (I never read without making sure I am in a secure position. I have been like this ever since the age of seven when, sitting on a high wall and reading The Water Babies, I was so seduced by the descriptions of underwater life that I unconsciously relaxed my muscles. Instead of being held buoyant by the water that so vividly surrounded me in my mind, I plummeted to the ground and knocked myself out. I can still feel the scar under my fringe now. Reading can be dangerous.) ~ Diane Setterfield

I want the brand gone, Cecile," Lesharo said quietly. "I have no wish to have Ducharme's mark on me. If you will not permit Pierre to do this, will you do it?"
"Ducharme said I should put my own mark on you," she recalled, turning her face away at the memory. "I cannot do what he did."
"His mark is the mark of a pani, set upon me by a man who was less than an animal. I would proudly bear the scar you gave me, for it will be something done to me in friendship. ~ Maxine Tottier

It was love, and it hit me so hard I leaned against the screen door that still stood between us, just to stay vertical. The universe was good because he was in it. I loved the hole in his jeans and the dirt on his bare feet and the scab on his elbow and the scar that laces through one eyebrow. Gat, my Gat. ~ E. Lockhart

The scar on her forearm meant she could never be loyal to her family. Her name meant she could never be loyal to the Corbeaus. The only one left to be loyal to was him. ~ Anna-Marie McLemore

I feel shock splinter through him, his body going rigid. Then he relaxes, melting into me, stepping forward until I am caught between him and the wall, the torch crackling beside me. His hands slide down my back, over my hips and thighs, leaving a trail of fire. His heart beats fast enough for the both of us, its thunderous pulse echoing through me.
I bury my hands in his dark hair, fingers knotting around those thick locks. Desire pulls at my stomach, and I lean into him, lifting one leg and wrapping it around his waist. He lifts me, and my other leg coils around him, my skirts sliding up my thighs, my back pressed against the column.
His lips are soft and warm and gentle, underlined with barely restrained urgency. I cannot get enough of him. I pull his kurta over his head and let it fall on the floor. I press my hands against his bared chest, feel his heart against my palm, his lungs rising and falling. His shoulder is knotted with the scar from the arrow he took for me. He kisses me again, this time more strongly, and I run my hands down his jaw and neck, over his shoulders, the taut muscles of his back.
He turns, without letting me go or breaking our kiss, and we tumble onto the soft divan. Aladdin holds himself over me, his abdomen clenched and his hair hanging across his forehead. His lips wander downward, to my chin, to the curve of my jaw, to my neck.
My hands are ravenous, exploring the planes and angles of his body. His fingers find mine, and our ~ Jessica Khoury

I thought about how Bree and I were so different... and yet so similar. She carried the guilt of not fighting when she thought she should have, and I carried the scar of what happened when you did. We had each reacted differently in a moment of terror, and yet we both still hurt. Maybe there was no right or wrong, no black or white, only a thousand shades of gray when it came to pain and what we each held ourselves responsible for. ~Archer, Ch.15 ~ Mia Sheridan

The hand that rested on my shoulder rubbed it a bit, comfortingly. Then it gave my shoulder a little squeeze. I leaned into him.

Maybe it was that I was broken. Maybe it was just that I was out of my mind. But it occurred to me that I was going to kiss him. The thought just arrived, certain knowledge, delivered from some greater, more knowledgeable place. I was going to kiss him. Stephen would not want to kiss me. He would back up in horror. And yet, I was still going to do it. I reached over, and put my hand against his chest, then I moved closer. I could feel just the very tips of the gentle stubble on his cheek brushing against my skin.

"Rory," he said. But it was a quiet protest, and it went nowhere.

For the first few seconds, he didn't move-he accepted the kiss like you might accept a spoonful of medicine. Then I heard it, a sigh, like he had finally set down a heavy weight.

I was pretty sure we were both kind of terrified, but I was completely sure that we were both doing this. We kissed slowly, very deliberately, coming together and then pulling apart and looking at each other. Then each kiss got longer, and then it didn't stop. Stephen put his hand just under the edge of my shirt, holding it on the spot where the scar was. Sometimes the skin around the scar got cold-now it was warm. Now it was alive.

"So Thorpe says that-Seriously?"

Callum was in the doorway.

Stephen mumbled what I think was ~ Maureen Johnson

Our characteristic response to the mutilated statue, the bronze dug up from the earth, is revealing. It is not that we prefer time-worn bas-reliefs, or rusted statuettes as such, nor is it the vestiges of death that grip us in them, but those of life. Mutilation is the scar left by the struggle with Time, and a reminder of it - Time which is as much a part of ancient works of art as the material they are made of, and thrusts up through the fissures, from a dark underworld, where all is at once chaos and determinism. ~ Andre Malraux

In a short time, the right man will find you, and you will lose your heart to him and he will lose his to you. It will be just as it should be, and the scar will not matter. ~ Tracie Peterson

Hundreds of eyes watched him like vultures circling a wounded dog, but they didn't matter. Only one pair of eyes mattered to Grey at that moment.
It only made sense that he should be the only one in the room not wearing a mask. He had hidden himself for so long, that it felt somehow cleansing to put himself on such blatant display. He deserved this blatant attention. And on some level, he needed it.
Head high, he walked through the ballroom, the crowd parting for him. They didn't draw back so much that he couldn't hear their whispers.
"The nerve!"
"Did you see the scar?"
"Always did know how to make an entrance."
"He's so handsome!"
Grey stopped listening. It didn't matter what they said. All that mattered was finding Rose, and somehow he knew that she would be waiting at the end, letting him make this walk alone as he needed to do. ~ Kathryn Smith

Have you ever been hurt and the place tries to heal a bit, and you just pull the scar off of it over and over again. ~ Rosa Parks

Clary shut her eyes. You didn't say no to an angel, no matter what it had in mind. Her heart pounding, she sat floating in the darkness behind her eyelids, resolutely trying not to think of Jace. But his face appear against the blank screen of her closed eyelids anyway - not smiling at her but looking sidelong, and she could see the scar at his temple, the uneven curl at the corner of his mouth, and the silver line on his throat where Simon had bitten him - all the marks and flaws and imperfections that made up the person she loved most in the world. Jace. A bright light lit her vision to scarlet, and she fell back against the sand, wondering if she was going to pass out - or maybe she was dying - but she didn't want to die, not now that she could see Jace's face so clearly in front of her. She could almost hear his voice, too, saying her name, the way he'd whispered it at Renwick's, over and over again. Clary. Clary. Clary.
"Clary," Jace said. "Open your eyes. ~ Cassandra Clare

Then perhaps you don't need it. I think the scar gives you character, even if it does mar those pretty tattoos. Would make for great tavern stories if you didn't cover it."
Neferre laughed flatly and stuck her hands in her pockets. "There's nothing great about getting mugged, Ziro."
Ziro laughed, her deep voice jiggling her second chin. "Oh, aye. But no one said you had to tell the truth now, did they? ~ Ash Gray

A little present from my run-in with a sword. Or should I say from when the sword had a run-in with me?" His eyes lit up.
"Want to see the scar? It's cool." He started pulling his shirt out of his pants.
"Janco," Ari warned. "We're not supposed to be fraternizing with the Sitians."
"But she's not Sitian. Right, Yelena? You haven't gone south on us, have you?" Janco's voice held mock horror.
"Because if you have I can't give you your present."
I took my switchblade out, showing the inscription to Janco. "What about 'Sieges weathered, fight together, friends forever'? Does that change if I become an official southerner?"
Janco rubbed the hair on his chin, considering.
"No," Ari said. "You could change into a goat and it would still apply. ~ Maria V. Snyder

There must still be some last invisible unbroken strand connecting them, something deeper than mourning. The wound had healed but the scar wouldn't fade, not quite. ~ Lev Grossman

The knife point dug into Akos's skin, right over the scar Ryzek had given him.
"Vas," Eijeh said, and he sounded a little terse. Nervous? Akos thought. But it was a foolish hope. "You can't kill him, Ryzek won't allow it. So stop playing at it."
Vas grunted, and took the knife away.
Akos's body ached as it relaxed. "Is there some kind of Shotet holiday today where you visit the people you hate to make them miserable?" He wiped at the cold sweat on the back of his neck. "Well, I'm not celebrating. Leave me alone."
"No, but your presence has been requested to witness the interrogation of a confessed renegade," Vas said. "Along with Cyra's."
"What use would I be at an interrogation?" Akos said.
Vas tilted his head, a smile creeping across his face. "You were initially brought here to bring relief to Cyra on a regular basis. I assume that is the use you will be put to."
"Right," Akos said. "I'm sure that's the reason."
Vas sheathed his knife--he probably knew as well as Akos did that he wouldn't need it to get Akos to do what he said. After all, they were on a ship. In space. ~ Veronica Roth

The scar will remain, but it is better for a man to lose both arms than his soul; and these hard years, instead of being lost, may be made the most precious of your lives, if they teach you to rule yourselves. ~ Louisa May Alcott

The scar, and her indifference to it, did something extraordinary for her, just as damage to some art object threw into relief how beautiful it had once been, tarnishing and tempering her face with the reminder of what humanity did to lovely things and how they bore it. ~ Ariana Franklin

Words! What power they hold. Once they have rooted in your psyche, it is difficult to escape them. Words can shape the future of a child and destroy the existence of an adult.
Words are powerful. Be careful how you use them because once you have pronounced them, you cannot remove the scar they leave behind. ~ Vashti Quiroz-Vega

Why do you look?" I mutter.
I half expect Magiano to tease me, spitting back one of his sarcastic phrases. But he doesn't smile. "We are drawn to stories," he says in a soft voice, "and every scar carries one." He lifts a hand and places his palm gently against the ruined side of my face, covering the scar.
I look down, embarrassed now. Instinctively, I reach up to brush some of my hair over my face - only to remember that I no longer have long locks.
"Hiding it makes you more beautiful," Magiano says. Then he takes his hand away, exposing my scar again. "But revealing it makes you you." He nods at me. "So wear it proudly. ~ Marie Lu

she doesn't remember running straight into her grandmother's birdbath when she was a child either but she has the scar to prove it well she had the scar to prove it. but she misplaced it with the rest of her skin somewhere. it's strange all the things you forget about when you can't find the scars to prove they happened anymore. ~ Trista Mateer

Give it air & let the scar on your soul reveal itself, because, like the body, it too was made to heal itself. ~ Curtis Tyrone Jones

His broad, flat face, made asymmetrical and inconceivably ugly by the scar, radiates friendly solicitude. Justineau ~ M.R. Carey

The troubles of the young are soon over; they leave no external mark. If you wound the tree in its youth the bark will quickly cover the gash; but when the tree is very old, peeling the bark off, and looking carefully, you will see the scar there still. All that is buried is not dead. ~ Olive Schreiner