The Stillness Of You Quotes

But he was here. In my bed. His body warm and hard and feeling so much like home that I ached. ~ Julie Bale

Shortly before ten o'clock the stillness of the air grew quite oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and the band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a dischord in the great harmony of nature's silence. A little after midnight came a strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to carry a strange, faint, hollow booming. ~ Bram Stoker

In its outward manifestation, meditation appears to involve either stopping, by parking the body in a stillness that suspends activity, or giving oneself over to flowing movement. In either case, it is an embodiment of wise attention, an inward gesture undertaken for the most part in silence, a shift from doing to simply being. It is an act that may at first seem artificial but that we soon discover, if we keep at it, is ultimately one of pure love for the life unfolding within us and around us. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Warriorship is an infinitely nuanced subject. A true warrior desires nothing so much as to be perfectly appropriate, "in sync" with space and time in each and every moment. The perfection of warrior timing results in a kind of invisibility. Walking between the super strings of karma, or bound activity, the warrior engages in kriya, or spontaneous action. This is the actionless action spoken of so eloquently by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. Only the natural perfection of kriya ensures that a warrior's actions will be of real benefit to those she serves. Walking between and in a state of total non-distraction, a warrior's invisibility is identical to her invincibility. In the warrior heart is a dynamic stillness that is unperturbed by any arising of this world, by any impediment or seeming obstacle. Even when we have not realized this perfection, it is our warrior hearts, still mostly unknown to us, that lead us steadily on to realization. ~ Shambhavi Sarasvati

Stillness fell upon them, as weighty as a promise. The two of them walked in silence, along the still,

moonlit landscape, and through the drowsing trees. ~ Debotri Dhar

BEAUTY ARISES IN THE STILLNESS OF YOUR PRESENCE ~ Eckhart Tolle

A blight had fallen on the trees and shrubs; and the wind, at length beginning to break the unnatural stillness that had prevailed all day, sighed heavily from time to time, as though foretelling in grief the ravages of the coming storm. The bat skimmed in fantastic flights through the heavy air, and the ground was alive with crawling things, whose instinct brought them forth to swell and fatten in the rain. ~ Charles Dickens

I think these movements and become them, here,
In this room's stillness, none of them about,
And relish them all-until I think of where
Thrashed by a crook, the cursive adder writes
Quick V's and Q's in the dust and rubs them out.
from Movements ~ Norman MacCaig

I went to visit Alcatraz years ago when I was on tour with the Pistols, and I really liked the atmosphere of the place. I genuinely, really, thoroughly enjoyed the whole morning there. I just liked the quietness and stillness of what is basically a cruel prison complex. I still found some kind of joy in that. That's how I am. ~ John Lydon

The silence in the room was so unusually quiet that the beginning of it seemed rather loud when the utter stillness of the end of it had been encountered. ~ Flann O'Brien

Now the wood in early morning was utterly silent. She walked carefully through damp leaves, around tangles of bramble and vine, trying not to disturb the stillness. She could not see the sky, only green and shadow woven thickly above her, yelding not a scrap of blue. She breathed soundlessly. So did the wood around her, she felt; it seemed a live thing, alert and watching her, trees trailing whisps of morning mist, their faces hidden, their thoughts seeping into the air like scent. It was, she thought, like being surrounded by unspoken words. ~ Patricia A. McKillip

The thing I hated while reading this book, it turns out, was me. Bad things happen, and shoulders are shrugged. The most serious of events are blended with the strange. The author pulled me inside his mind, and what I found there was a dead stillness, the somber and poignant wisdom of someone with little hope and scars across his eyes. ~ Hugh Howey

that of the mind is in abysmal stillness; ~ Lao-Tzu

Let it all go to waste…
For what I long for, I'm bound to resign!
Bittersweet is, like the taste of wine,
This Love's captivating taste.

Let my heart be tormented by wonder
It will never manage to attain.
On my window symphony of rain,
Open seas resound in strikes of thunder.

Let my soul be lost, 'til Sun is set,
And be found reborn within its death,
I surrender the very last breath,
Confessing my sins with no regret.

Let it all go to waste, indeed.
For with or without it, the sentence is pain.
Therefore, in my stillness, silenced will remain,
Everlasting dream and consuming need. ~ Aleksandra Ninkovic

After the cold gust of wind there was an absolute stillness of the air. The thunder-charged mass hung unbroken beyond the low, ink-black headland, darkening the twilight. By contrast, the sky at the zenith displayed pellucid clearness, the sheen of a delicate glass bubble which the merest movement of air might shatter. A little to the left, between the black masses of the headland and of the forest, the volcano, a feather of smoke by day and a cigar-glow at night, took its first fiery expanding breath of the evening. Above it a reddish star came out like an expelled spark from the fiery bosom of the earth, enchanted into permanency by the mysterious spell of frozen spaces. ~ Joseph Conrad

Meditation in the midst of activity is a thousand times superior to meditation in stillness. ~ Hakuin Ekaku

I - At her tone, at once intimate and formal, a terrible sadness came over me, and when we looked at each other it seemed that the whole past was redefined and brought into focus by this moment, clear as glass, a complexity of stillness that was rainy afternoons in spring, a dark chair in the hallway, the light-as-air touch of her hand on the back of my head. ~ Donna Tartt

The complete stillness of my energy is something I have never felt before. I am full of light. I am confused. A strange mix of guilt and wonder swims inside me.
The thought of ruling Kenettra with Enzo at my side - Enzo, who had saved me from certain death, who brought my powers out with a mere touch of his hand on my back, whose own fire awakened my ambitions - thrills me. So why am I here, this close to a boy who is not my prince? Why am I reacting in this way to his touch? ~ Marie Lu

In December the first frosts came with the full moon, and then my nights of vigil held a quality harder to bear. There was a sort of beauty to them, cold and clear, that caught at the heart and made me stare in wonder. From my windows the long lawns dipped to the meadows, and the meadows to the sea, and all of them were white with frost, and white too under the moon. The trees that fringed the lawns were black and still. Rabbits came out and pricked about the grass, then scattered to their burrows; and suddenly, from the hush and stillness, I heard that high sharp bark of a vixen, with the little sob that follows it, eerie, unmistakable, unlike any other call that comes by night, and out of the woods I saw the lean low body creep and run out upon the lawn, and hide again where the trees would cover it. Later I heard the call again, away in the distance, in the open park, and now the full moon topped the trees and held the sky, and nothing stirred on the lawns beneath my window. I wondered if Rachel slept, in the blue bedroom; or if, like me, she left her curtains wide. The clock that had driven me to bed at ten struck one, struck two, and I thought that here about me was a wealth of beauty that we might have shared. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

During several centuries Clochemerle, far from the cities and trade routes, had lived in stillness and isolation. But now, at last, the clamour of the great world was crossing the invisible barrier, bringing doubts, temptations, and discontents. ~ Gabriel Chevallier

At the Moor
Wanderer in the black wind; quietly the dry reeds whisper
In the stillness of the moor. In the gray sky
A flock of wild birds follows;
Slanting over gloomy waters.
Turmoil. In decayed hut
The spirit of putrescence flutters with black wings.
Crippled birches in the autumn wind.
Evening in deserted tavern. The way home is scented all around
By the soft gloom of grazing herds;
Apparition of the night; toads plunge from brown waters. ~ Georg Trakl

The Praying Mantis Visits A Penthouse


The praying Mantis with its length of straw
Out of nowhere's forehead born full armed
Engaged the century at my terrace door.
Focused at inches the dinosaur insect sends
Broadsides of epic stillness at my eye,
Above the deafening projects of the age.
My love, who fears the thunder of its poise,
Has seen it and cries out. The clouds like curls
Fall in my faith as I seize a stick to stop
This Martian raid distilled to a straw with legs,
To wisps of prowess. Bristling with motionlessness
The Mantis prays to the Stick twice armed with Man.
I strike, the stick whistles, shearing off two legs
Which run off by themselves beneath some boards.
The Mantis spreads out tints of batlike wing,
The many colored pennants of its blood,
And hugs my weapon; the frantic greens come out,
the reds and yellows blurt out from the straw,
All sinews doubtless screaming insect death.
Against the railing's edge I knock the stick
Sending that gay mad body into the gulf.
Such noisy trappings in defeat wake doubts.
I search my mind for possible wounds and feel
The victim's body heavy on the victor's heart. ~ Oscar Williams

All these years, her sole objective had been to keep still and hope no one would ever know. She had been a mistress of stillness. She had mastered the simulation of peace without a wisp of real peace, like a nun from a silent order who was screaming inside her head, or a yogi racked with pain. How she had managed to fool anyone, let alone everyone, mystified her (how obtuse people were!) and, oddly, made her extraordinarily bitter. Because the price of her gift for evasion was to have no one, not one person, who understood how horrible she felt. All the time. Absolutely all the time. ~ Jean Hanff Korelitz

I'd come to appreciate the sounds of silence. I'd grown accustomed to the stillness of Ponder, where one could hear the snow being blown off the tree limbs by the wind, the distant cry of a caribou, and the crackle of the Northern Lights. ~ Debbie Macomber

something about the stillness or my state of mind reminded me of the world's remarkable capacity to carry on in every place at once. ~ Marina Keegan

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger. ~ William Shakespeare

A dozen candles burned themselves to death on the shelf before me. Each of my breaths made them tremble. To them, I was a behemoth, to frighten and destroy. And yet, if I strayed too close, they could destroy me. My invisible breath, the pulses of life that flowed in and out, could end them freely, while my fingers could not do the same without being repaid in pain.'"
"'I understood in a moment of stillness,'" Litima read. "'Those candle flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Left alone, they lit and warmed. Let run rampant, they would destroy the very things they were meant to illuminate. Embryonic bonfires, each bearing a seed of destruction so potent it could tumble cities and dash kings to their knees. In later years, my mind would return to that calm, silent evening, when I had stared at rows of living lights. And I would understand. To be given loyalty is to be infused like a gemstone, to be granted the frightful license to destroy not only one's self, but all within one's care. ~ Brandon Sanderson

His gaze, blunted
by the unnumbered procession
of iron bars, uncounted
as his softly padded steps.
Smooth motion of blood and sinew
turning in its own, small circle
prescribed by bars and walls
... and skin, confined.
Suddenly, without warning,
a flash of light and image
pierces the caged brain,
and passing through its beating heart
to stillness finds its way. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

I stand perfectly still.
Every inch of my skin is taut with tension, fraught with feeling and the pressure is building in my chest, pounding louder and faster and harder, overcompensating for my stillness. I do not tremble when I'm frozen in time. I train my breaths to come slower, I count things that do not exist, I make up numbers I do not have, I pretend time is a broken hourglass bleeding seconds through sand. I dare to believe.
I dare to hope.... ~ Tahereh Mafi

And hate the bright stillness of the noon without wind, without motion. the only other living thing a hawk, hungry for prey, suspended in the blinding, sunlit blue. And yet how gentle it seems to someone raised in a landscape short of rain- the skyline of a hill broken by no more trees than one can count, the grass, the empty sky, the wish for water. ~ Dana Gioia

Gentle day's flower - The hummingbird competes With the stillness of the air. ~ Chogyam Trungpa

Everyone has a different way of escaping the dark stillness of their mind. ~ Marie Lu

The word metastasis, used to describe the migration of cancer from one site to another, is a curious mix of meta and stasis - "beyond stillness" in Latin - an ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee

…I call it a November-loneliness because there is a sort of demanding stillness in my heart and it, more than ever, inflames both my mental and psychological system. November never pauses, it listlessly seems to show off, don't you think so? Or, rather, it does pause but it is always a hellish pause… ~ Katherine Mansfield

If there were a silent observer, Mirabelle would be seen as a carefree, happy girl who is preparing for a night on the town. But in reality, these activities are the physical manifestations of her stillness. ~ Steve Martin

I can be alone without being lonely. In fact, those times of solitude are necessary respite for a beleaguered soul, set upon by the pressures of life. I need to take whatever moments I can to just be still. ~ Steve Goodier

Instead of indulging in jealousy, greed, in relishing themselves, there are men who keep their hearts alert to the stillness in which time rolls on and leaves us behind ... those who are open to the wonder will not miss it. Faith is found in solicitude for faith, in an inner care for the wonder that is everywhere. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

Space and silence are two aspects of the same thing. The same no-thing. They are externalization of inner space and inner silence, which is stillness: the infinitely creative womb of all existence. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind become still.
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature. ~ Laozi

Dead flowers stood rotting in the massive Chinese vases and a shut-up heaviness overweighed the room: the air almost too stale to breathe, the exact, suffocating feel of our apartment when Mrs. Barbour took me back to Sutton Place to get some things I needed. It was a stillness I knew; this was a house closed in on itself when someone died. ~ Donna Tartt

Have faith in yourself, Keep morality, Have energetic behavior, Keep stillness of mind, Reflect on the teachings, Develop good habits, and perseverance. ~ Nissim Amon

The stillness of the early morning scene enables me to take in and enjoy many things which pass me by during the bustle of the day. First, there are the scents, which seem even more generous with their offerings than they are in the evening. ~ Rosemary Verey

I feel his arm
Lightly
Over me.
He takes one of my outstretched hands.
Draws it beneath my stomach.
"One more time ... "
This is not sex,
Not friendship.
Something
Strange
Special
In the stillness of his breath,
The waterlike way he moves.
He is making a dance.
We are making a dance. ~ Stasia Ward Kehoe

Bowman, too, had been born in a great city, in the French Hospital in Manhattan, in the burning heat of August and very early in the morning when all geniuses are born, as Pearson once told him. There had been an unbreathing stillness, and near dawn faint, distant thunder. It grew slowly louder, then gusts of cooler air before a tremendous storm broke with lightning and sheets of rain, and when it was over, ~ James Salter

This book tells my story. I'm writing it in Ireland, in a house on a hillside. The house sits low in the landscape between a holy well and the site of an Iron Age dwelling. It was built of stones ploughed out of the fields by men who knew how to raise them with their hands and to lock one stone to the next so each was firm. It's a lone house on the foothills of the last mountain on the Dingle peninsula, the westernmost point in mainland Europe. At night the sky curves above it like a dark bowl, studded with stars.
…
From the moment I crossed the mountain, I fell in love with the place, which was more beautiful than any I'd ever seen. And with a way of looking at life that was deeper, richer, and wiser than any I'd known before. ~ Felicity Hayes-McCoy