The World Through My Eyes Quotes

As soon as I look up, his eyes click onto my face. The breath whooshes out of my body and everything freezes for a second, as though I'm looking at him through my camera lens, zoomed in all the way, the world pausing for that tiny span of time between the opening and closing of the shutter. ~ Lauren Oliver

Lincoln grinned. "The Academy owns a number of buildings. There are walkways between them." I couldn't take my eyes off the sky folk. "There are people wandering around in the sky, Linc. Explain this to me." He laughed one of his low, secretive laughs. One that echoed through my entire body. One that told me he adored me. One that somehow I knew, out of everyone in the world, was reserved for me. The laugh that broke my heart. Breathe. "I'm glad you find me amusing. Less laughing, more telling!" He laughed again and I was about a second away from either throwing a punch or throwing myself at him when a woman's voice caught our attention. "I ~ Jessica Shirvington

She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?"

"You'd probably kick my butt."

"You know I'd kick your butt."

I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal."

Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?"

"Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-"

"Oh, you so wanted to."

"Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought-I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry.

"Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft.

I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile.

"You're laughing at me," I complained.

"I am not!"

"You are so not making this easy."

Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands
around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it."

When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body.
― Rick Riordan, The Last Olympian ~ Rick Riordan

Galen places a hand on my thigh under the table and gives it a gentle squeeze. It's not meant to be sensual at all, but I've been going through Galen-withdrawals and I can't help but acknowledge the sensation of lava flowing through my veins. I try, try, try to respect that it's meant to comfort me. Galen must see it on my face because his eyes widen before he moves his hand away from me. "There's nothing for us to go back to, Emma," Galen says, clearing his throat. "That tribunal should have never happened. The Syrena world we once knew doesn't exist anymore."
So I was right. The only thing stopping him in the bedroom earlier was my wound. Not Syrena law. Not Syrena tradition. ~ Anna Banks

You saved the world," annabeth said.
"We saved the world."
"And Rachel is the new Oracle, which means she won't be dating anybody."
"You don't sound disappointed," I noticed.
Annabeth shrugged. "Oh, I don't care."
"Uh-huh."
She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?"
"You'd probably kick my butt."
"You know I'd kick your butt."
I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal."
Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?"
"Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking - "
"Oh, you so wanted to."
"Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought - I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because
things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry.
"Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft.
I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile.
"You're laughing at me," I complained.
"I am not!"
"You are so not making this easy."
Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for
you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it."
When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body. I could've stayed that way ~ Rick Riordan

I brushed my teeth like a crazed lunatic as I examined myself in the mirror. Why couldn't I look the women in commercials who wake up in a bed with ironed sheets and a dewy complexion with their hair perfectly tousled? I wasn't fit for human eyes, let alone the piercing eyes of the sexy, magnetic Marlboro Man, who by now was walking up the stairs to my bedroom. I could hear the clomping of his boots.
The boots were in my bedroom by now, and so was the gravelly voice attached to them. "Hey," I heard him say. I patted an ice-cold washcloth on my face and said ten Hail Marys, incredulous that I would yet again find myself trapped in the prison of a bathroom with Marlboro Man, my cowboy love, on the other side of the door. What in the world was he doing there? Didn't he have some cows to wrangle? Some fence to fix? It was broad daylight; didn't he have a ranch to run? I needed to speak to him about his work ethic.
"Oh, hello," I responded through the door, ransacking the hamper in my bathroom for something, anything better than the sacrilege that adorned my body. Didn't I have any respect for myself?
I heard Marlboro Man laugh quietly. "What're you doing in there?" I found my favorite pair of faded, soft jeans.
"Hiding," I replied, stepping into them and buttoning the waist.
"Well, c'mere," he said softly.
My jeans were damp from sitting in the hamper next to a wet washcloth for two days, and the best top I could find was a cardinal and gold FIGHT ON ~ Ree Drummond

And when he was suddenly gone -- no, not just gone, dead in every possible meaning of the word to me because of what he had done -- I found doubt. And what's more than that, I found my own slow spiral downward into the depths of hell. A world where shadows scared me, and the thought of people with their eyes looking through me, seeing what I really was underneath all of this shine and polish. When one domino falls, others follow and that is where I was. That is where I'd been until yesterday morning, when suddenly I was in the rain, looking out at a sea of those same faces that terrified me and I saw you. ~ Benjamin R. Smith

And here, after all that, is what I have come to believe about beauty: Laughter is beautiful. Kindness is beautiful. Cellulite is beautiful. Softness and plumpness and roundness are beautiful. It's more important to be interesting, to be vivid, and to be adventurous, than to sit pretty for pictures. A woman's soft tummy is a miracle of nature. Beauty comes from tenderness. Beauty comes from variety, from specificity, from the fact that no person in the world looks exactly like anyone else. Beauty comes from the tragedy that each person's life is destined to be lost to time. I believe women are too hard on themselves. I believe that when you love someone, she becomes beautiful to you. I believe the eyes see everything through the heart - and nothing in the world feels as good as resting them on someone you love. I have trained my eyes to look for beauty, and I've gotten very good at finding it. You can argue and tell me it's not true, but I really don't care what anyone says. I have come, at last, to believe in the title I came up with for the book: Everyone Is Beautiful. ~ Katherine Center

God is a thing I think I see in glimmers all over: an enormous and vague warmth I sometimes catch pulsing around me, giving me shivers and making tears prick my eyes; a mysterious and limitless Thing threaded through all the world and refusing to be reduced to a name or a set of rules and instead winding itself through millions of stories, true and made up, connecting all breathing things. And ~ Emily Henry

What divine drink wouldst thou have, my God, from this overflowing cup of my life?

My poet, is it thy delight to see thy creation through my eyes and to stand at the portals of my ears silently to listen to thine own eternal harmony?

Thy world is weaving words in my mind and thy joy is adding music to them. Thou givest thyself to me in love and then feelest thine own entire sweetness in me. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

In the moment all is dear to me, dear that in this logic there is no redemption, the city itself being the highest form of madness and each and every part, organic or inorganic, an expression of this same madness. I feel absurdly and humbly great, not as megalomaniac, but as human spore, as the dead sponge of life swollen to saturation. I no longer look into the eyes of the woman I hold in my arms but I swim through, head and arms and legs, and I see that behind the sockets of the eyes there is a region unexplored, the world of futurity, and here there is no logic whatever, just the still germination of events unbroken by night and day, by yesterday and tomorrow. The eye, accustomed to concentration on points in space, now concentrates on points in time; the eye sees forward and backward at will. The eye which was the I of the self no longer exists; this selfless eye neither reveals nor illuminates. It travels along the line of the horizon, a ceaseless, uninformed voyager. Trying to retain the lost body I grew in logic as the city, a point digit in the anatomy of perfection. I grew beyond my own death, spiritually bright and hard. I was divided into endless yesterdays, endless tomorrows, resting only on the cusp of the event, a wall with many windows, but the house gone. I must shatter the walls and windows, the last shell of the lost body, if I am to rejoin the present. That is why I no longer look into the eyes or through the eyes, but by the legerdemain of will swim throug ~ Henry Miller

To Roam

Well, I like this world
Well, I like this world
Well, I like this world
I like it how it was
I pray how it was
I like it how it was

Ghosts in the rain
Cold walk of freedom
Well, I'm walking a hallway
I'm walking a hallway
I'm walking a hallway
Said, I'm walking a hallway
I'm walking a hallway
Well, I'm walking a hallway

I am proud and I'm gloried
Thinking 'bout the day what'll surely come
When on the scene, I'm smile evaded
When outta nowhere, I'm gonna run
But I know where I go, I will be gone

Somewhere to run to - if you see
You could see it through my mind
You wouldn't know it - no way
You'd know when my eyes roam
Through the fog and hail and sleet
I missed the snow and nowhere
Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere
You should've known where
Should've known where
You should've known where
Should've known better, baby

'Cause I like this world
And I like this world

Some people want to roam
Some people, they roam this world alone
Some people were born to roam
Some people they roam this world alone

Alone ~ Robert Pattinson

In the end, the cats were rounded up and put into a room. My father went into the room with his First World War revolver, more reliable, he said, than a shotgun. The gun sounded again, again, again, again. The cats that were still uncaught had sensed their fate and were raging and screaming all over the bush, with people after them. My father came out of the room at one point, very white, with tight angry lips and wet eyes. He was sick.
Then he swore a good deal, then he went back into the room and the shooting continued. At last he came out. The servants went in and carried off the corpses to the disused well. Some of the cats had escaped – three never came back at all to the murderous household, so they must have gone wild and taken their chances.
When my mother returned from her trip, and the neighbour who had brought her had gone, she walked quiet and uncommenting through the house where there was now one cat, her old favourite, asleep on her bed. My mother had not asked for this cat to be spared, because it was old, and not very well. But she was looking for it; and she sat a long time stroking and talking to it. Then she came out to the verandah.
There sat my father and there I sat, murderers, and feeling it. She sat down. He was rolling a cigarette. His hands were still shaking. He looked up at her and said: 'That must never happen again.' And I suppose it never did. ~ Doris Lessing

I carry the weight of my emptiness, And see the world through eyes of needs, These needs breeds more habits, And these habits preserve my loneliness… ~ Piyush Rohankar

Y-You love me?"
Gazing down at her pert nose and the freckles that made him think of an adorable pixie, he felt his throat constrict. "I want you every hour of the day. I can't imagine a future without you in it. The idea of returning to my empty house alone is so hellish that I'd rather wander the world at your heels than be without you. Tell me, is that love?"
She cast him a blazing smile. "It sounds like it."
"Then I love you, my wonderful, sword-wielding, tart-tongued angel. I want you to be my wife. I want you to preside over my table and accompany me to balls and share my bed." A most uncharacteristic happiness surged through him. "And I want to have children with you, lots of them, filling every room in Halstead Hall."
A sudden understanding lit her face. His clever love didn't miss the fact that he was offering her not just himself, but everything else he'd neglected, as well. Everything that he wanted to put to rights. That he needed to put to rights.
"Not filling every room, I hope," she teased, even as tears shone in her eyes. "There are three hundred, after all."
"Then I suppose we'll have to get started right away," he said, matching her light tone. His heart near to bursting, he reached again for the buttons on the back of her gown. "These things should never be left until the last minute."
As a laugh of pure joy bubbled out of her, she began to untie his cravat. "I can see you're going to be quite the lusty husband, aren't you ~ Sabrina Jeffries

When you read my stories, I want you to see the world through my eyes; as if I based my work on you. Come away with me, and I'll show you a world that you've never seen before or ever want to leave. ~ Nila N. Brown

What fools we all are. We girls. Afraid of the wrong things, at the wrong times. Afraid of a burdened face, when outside, outside waiting for you are fires you cannot imagine. Men, holding matches up to your gasoline eyes. Flames, flames all around you, licking at your just-born breasts, your just-bled body. And infernos. Infernos as wide as the world. Waiting to impoverish you, make you ash, and even the wind, even the wind. Even the wind, my dear, she thought, watching you burn, willing it, passing over you, and through you. Scattering you, because you are a girl, and because you are ash. ~ Shobha Rao

Attention, God the Judge, God the Father, who Art in Heaven, give me one miracle, please. If You exist as I know You do, even if no one else in the world believes in You, please give me a brain tumor. Please tear my limbs from their sockets and let the backseat and my older sister be totally covered with blood. Please make me dumb and blind and deaf, please make me a martyr, please, dear heavenly Father. Tear my heart right from my chest. Drive spikes into my eyes and let hot lava shoot out of my mouth. Make me silent and thoroughly dead, but please hurry. Before we get home, before we reach the next stoplight, let the only sound be no sound, the silence of my death burning in the empty sky. If You are a mighty and true God, if You are not just a dream I have made up, please, before another hour, another minute passes, let the wire in my bra poke through my heart. Dear Lord, please, please, give me this one miracle. I have begged You every day, every evening, so please, let Your will be done, let Your will be done. Give me a gruesome death as fast as You possibly can. Thank you, God. Amen. ~ Joe Meno

There are probably a few things worse than climbing into a hole that is actually underneath a creepy basement, but at that moment, it was hard to think of any of them.
I was only a few steps down the ladder before I was plunged into darkness. The dim light in the cellar wasn't strong enough to penetrate the gloom. I was also pretty sure that the tunnel was narrower now, and as I took another step down, both my shoulders brushed the walls.
The metallic taste of fear flooded my mouth as my suddenly sweaty hands slid on the iron rungs.
"Mercer?" Archer called from above me. "You okay?"
I rested my forehead on the back of my hands, and tried to keep the panic out of my voice as I replied, "Yeah, fine. Why do you ask?"
"Because you're gasping."
Oh. Now that he mentioned it, my breath was heaving in and out of my lungs pretty quickly. I made an effort to slow it down as he asked, "Is it the dark, or-" He grunted a little and shifted. Dirt rained down on me, and I shut my eyes.
"Both," I choked out. "Apparently I'm claustrophobic now. That's, uh, new. Probably a side effect of fleeing a burning building through an underground tunnel." I took another shaky breath. "Yay for psychological trauma."
"Come back up," Archer said automatically, and I kind of loved him for that.
"No," I said, willing my feet to keep moving. "We're trying to save the world here, Cross. No time for panic attacks. ~ Rachel Hawkins

I wandered aimlessly through this muddy lane bespattered with blood, fragments of the past detached themselves and floated listlessly before my eyes, taunting me with the direst forebodings [ ... ] My world of human beings had perished; I was utterly alone in the world and for friends I had the streets, and the streets spoke to me in that sad, bitter language compounded of human misery, yearning, regret, failure, wasted effort ~ Henry Miller

His slender hands curled into fists. "You don't want to change? Do you have any idea what I've been through for you? Why do you think I keep coming back to that horrid, dirty, decaying world of yours? Because you changed me! It makes me sick to think of how I have shifted away from what I should be!"
I leaned back, terrified of the pure fury in his face.
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and releasing all the tension from his facial muscles, returning them back to the mask of perfection. "But this is irrelevant. When I get back to where I am supposed to be, my connection to eternity will be restored and flawless. I will be restored. And you will be connected, too, and we have forever to - "
"Whoa, whoa, stop right there, psycho. I'm not coming with you."
He got that infuriating smile, that one that all faeries have that says they know more than you ever will and you can't even begin to function on the same plane as them but isn't it cute that you think you have any right to consider yourself a rational creature. It was a condescending head pat in smile form.
"Evelyn," he said, his golden voice trying to pull me in closer. "I love you. ~ Kiersten White

As the character talks and moves, the world around him is slowly revealed, just like dollying a camera back for a wider look at things. So all my stories start with a character, and that character introduces setting, culture, conflict, government, economy ... all of it, through his or her eyes. ~ Robin Hobb

there is a list of questions
i want to ask but never will
there is a list of questions
i go through in my head
every time i'm alone
and my mind can't stop itself from searching for you
there is a list of questions i want to ask
so if you're listening somewhere
here i am asking them

what do you think happens
to the love that's left behind
when two lovers leave
how blue do you think it gets
before it passes away
does it pass away
or does it still exist somewhere
waiting for us to come back
when we lied to ourselves by
calling this unconditional and left
which one of us hurt more
i shattered into a million little pieces
and those pieces shattered into a million more
crumbled into dust till
there was nothing left of me but the silence

tell me how love
how did the grieving feel for you
how did the mourning hurt
how did you peel your eyes open after every blink
knowing i'd never be there staring back

it must be hard to live with what ifs
there must always be this constant dull aching
in the pit of your stomach
trust me
i feel it too
how in the world did we get here
how did we live through it
and how are we still living

how many months did it take
before you stopped thinking of me
or are you still thinking of me
cause if you are
then maybe i am too
thin ~ Rupi Kaur

MY BOSS SENDS me home because of all the dried blood on my pants, and I am overjoyed.
The hole punched through my cheek doesn't ever heal. I'm going to work, and my punched-out eye sockets are two swollen-up black bagels around the little piss holes I have left to see through. Until today, it really pissed me off that I'd become this totally centered Zen Master and nobody had noticed. Still, I'm doing the little FAX thing. I write little HAIKU things and FAX them around to everyone. When I pass people in the hall at work, I get totally ZEN right in everyone's hostile little FACE.
Worker bees can leave
Even drones can fly away
The queen is their slave

You give up all your worldly possessions and your car and go live in a rented house in the toxic waste part of town where late at night, you can hear Marla and Tyler in his room, calling each other hum; butt wipe.
Take it, human butt wipe.
Do it, butt wipe.
Choke it down. Keep it down, baby.
Just by contrast, this makes me the calm little center of the world.
Me, with my punched-out eyes and dried blood in big black crusty stains on my pants, I'm saying HELLO to everybody at work. HELLO! Look at me. HELLO! I am so ZEN. This is BLOOD. This is NOTHING. Hello. Everything is nothing, and it's so cool to be ENLIGHTENED. Like me.
Sigh.
Look. Outside the window. A bird.
My boss asked if the blood was my blood.
The bird flies downwind. I'm writing a ~ Chuck Palahniuk

So, Randolph Carter, in the name of the Other Gods I spare you and charge you to serve my will. I charge you to seek that sunset city which is yours, and to send thence the drowsy truant gods for whom the dream-world waits. Not hard to find is that roseal fever of the gods, that fanfare of supernal trumpets and clash of immortal cymbals, that mystery whose place and meaning have haunted you through the halls of waking and the gulfs of dreaming, and tormented you with hints of vanished memory and the pain of lost things awesome and momentous. Not hard to find is that symbol and relic of your days of wonder, for truly, it is but the stable and eternal gem wherein all that wonder sparkles crystallised to light your evening path. Behold! It is not over unknown seas but back over well-known years that your quest must go; back to the bright strange things of infancy and the quick sun-drenched glimpses of magic that old scenes brought to wide young eyes. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

I can see the driver as if I'm looking at him through binoculars, bending to adjust the volume on his radio, eyes wide at what he hears, which I can't understand because when he hits you there is only silence. My feet, pounding through the grass, make no sound. I know that my mouth is open, that air is rushing across my stretched vocal chords, but I hear nothing. You lift into the air and the car is past before you land silently at my feet, as if something as small as you couldn't possibly make a sound in a world where buildings can come down. ~ Philip Beard

When violet eyes get brighter
And heavy wings grow lighter
I'll taste the sky and feel alive again
And I'll forget the world that I knew
But I swear I won't forget you
Oh if my voice could reach back through the past
I'd whisper in your ear:
Oh darling I wish you were here. ~ Owl City

One of the main reasons I write fiction is to try to understand what life is like for people other than myself, to try to see the world through my characters' eyes. I often find that I'm able to understand certain emotional truths about my own life by exploring things from different vantages. ~ Molly Antopol

Sonnet LXXXI
And now you're mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.
Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
The night turns on its invisible wheels,
and you are pure beside me as a sleeping ember.
No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,
we will go together, over the waters of time.
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.
Your hands have already opened their delicate fists
and let their soft drifting signs drop away;
your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move
after, following the folding water you carry, that carries
me away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny.
Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all. ~ Pablo Neruda

My sense, although I don't remember discussing it with anyone, was that with the fall of France to the Nazis in June 1940, European civilization had collapsed. I also recalled that although both George Herbert Mead and John Dewey had been born in New England, they developed their distinctively American philosophy of pragmatism in Chicago. So thinking of my own New England roots, I decided to go to Chicago, which, seen through Carl Sandburg's eyes, was the opposite of European decadence: Hog Butcher for the World, Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler, Stormy, husky, brawling. City of the Big Shoulders.7 ~ Grace Lee Boggs

I will never be seen through your eyes again. When the world begins to depopulate of the people who love us, we become, little by little and following the rhythm of death, strangers. My place in the world was in your gaze and it was so unquestionable and perpetual that I never bothered to find out what was there. ~ Milena Busquets

Though I never told your name to anyone and forever I have cherished you within my soul alone, but since you always were dancing in my eyes, the whole world has seen you through my sight, and knew it that you are my beloved for whom my love is all meant for.

Though I never confessed my love to anyone and forever I have loved you within my heart alone, but since you are always resonating in my songs, the whole world has heard you through my words, and knew it that you are my beloved for whom my life is all meant for.

Though I never admitted my ecstasies to anyone and forever I have treasured you within my thoughts alone, but since you are always reflecting in my joys, the whole world has understood you through my delights, and knew it that you are my beloved for whom even my death is all meant for. ~ ~Sw. Chidananda Tirtha

it's a terrible feeling when you first fall in love. your mind gets completely taken over, you can't function properly anymore. the world turns into a dream place, nothing seems real. you forget your keys, no one seems to be talking English and even if they are you don't care as you can't hear what they're saying anyway, and it doesn't matter since your not really there. things you cared about before don't seem to matter anymore and things you didn't think you cared about suddenly do. I must become a brilliant cook, I don't want to waste time seeing my friends when I could be with him, I feel no sympathy for all those people in India killed by an earthquake last night; what is the matter with me? It's a kind of hell, but you feel like your in heaven.
even your body goes out of control, you can't eat, you don't sleep properly, your legs turn to jelly as your not sure where the floor is anymore. you have butterflies permanently, not only in your tummy but all over your body - your hands, your shoulders, your chest, your eyes everything's just a jangling mess of nerve endings tingling with fire. it makes you feel so alive. and yet its like being suffocated, you don't seem to be able to see or hear anything real anymore, its like people are speaking to you through treacle, and so you stay in your cosy place with him, the place that only you two understand. occasionally your forced to come up for air by your biggest enemy, Real Life, so you do the minimum then head back down ~ Annabel Giles

Renga with Katie


There's no better place
Than in each moment with you
Traveling through life

Regardless of place and time,
Or seasons and location,

I never look back
To a time without you there
And wish to return

We are each other's constant
In an ever changing world





On a pilgrimage
To no place particular,
Destinationless

Each moment we're arriving
At another sacred place

Appreciating,
Remembering life before
You opened my eyes

It's both vivid and soothing
Like I'd never had vision

Now I see the way,
As we travel together
The fog is lifted

Each sight reveals each other
Each step reveals another ~ Eric Overby

Tell us your life story.' I look up. Twenty sets of eyes looked back. Only forty-five minutes left in class. I wish I could tell them my life story. I would tell the popular girls to be nice, because later in life they'll realize isn't about them. I would tell the pretty girls that looks aren't all they have. I would tell the kids in black that is just a phase and the real world isn't quite so harsh. I would tell the tough girls that getting hurt is part of life. I would tell the pretty boy with the hair swoosh that there will be a million of him wherever he goes next and the thing that will make him stand out is his character. I would tell the girls trying desperately to fit in that one day it won't be so hard. I would tell the in-betweens that one day they'll have a place in this world. Mostly I would tell them there is a Jesus who loves them, a Jesus who knows what thy are going through and has a relationship waiting for them that is more then they could ever imagine. There are so many things I would like to tell this class, but for now they have to take a test. ~ Tindell Baldwin

I see so deeply within myself
Not needing my eyes.
I can see everything clearly!
Why would I want to bother my eyes again???
Now that I see the world ...
through His eyes. ~ Rumi

What are these?" Maxon asked, brushing across the tips of my fingers as we walked.
"Calluses. They're from pressing down on violin strings four hours a day."
"I've never noticed them before."
"Do they bother you?" I was the lowest caste of the six girls left, and I doubted any of them had hands like mine.
Maxon stopped moving and lifted my fingers to his lips, kissing the tiny, worn tips.
"On the contrary. I find them rather beautiful." I felt myself blush. "I've seen the world – admittedly mostly through bulletproof glass or from the tower of some ancient castle – but I've seen it. And I have access to the answers of a thousand questions at my disposal. But this small hand here?" He looked deeply into my eyes. "This hand makes sounds incomparable to anything I've ever heard. Sometimes I think I only dreamed that I heard you play the violin, it was so beautiful. These calluses are proof that it was real. ~ Kiera Cass

O all fair lovers about the world,
There is none of you, none, that shall comfort me.
My thoughts are as dead things, wrecked and whirled
Round and round in a gulf of the sea;
And still, through the sound and the straining stream,
Through the coil and chafe, they gleam in a dream,
The bright fine lips so cruelly curled,
And strange swift eyes where the soul sits free. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

That night,I lay on my side,staring out the window into the invisible world outside.I kept trying to fall asleep,but then my eyes would dart open,just to check.I couldn't help but hope that Margo Roth Spiegelman would return to my window and drag my tired ass through one more night I'd never forget. ~ John Green

Vic gazed up at Kellan. His mate's breathing was slow, but steady, and somewhere deep inside Vic believed that Kellan was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. The gods would watch over his beautiful swan and keep their egg safe.
Soon, Vic's eyes grew heavy, but he fought against the sleep trying to take him. No, not yet. Just a little longer. He didn't want Kellan to go through the egg-laying all by himself, not when Vic could be there and offer encouragement, to share in the moment and reassure him if he became scared.
The wool blanket was doing its job and Vic had warmed up nicely. His eyelids fluttered, so he tried to keep his focus on Kellan, tried to keep from drifting off.
Kellan. My precious mate, my love…
The song of a cardinal invaded Vic's dream and he tried to ignore it in favor of the imaginary outing he was enjoying with Kellan on the lake during some future summer. We can bring the baby. I bet it will be a water baby, same as its daddy. The slow trill of the winter bird cut through Vic's peaceful world and his eyes flew open, his brain registering it was morning right as his eyes adjusted to the light.
He yelped, his arms flailing for a second before he tumbled off the bed and landed with a thump onto the braided rug. Vic lay there for a moment, his heart pounding, trying to work out whether he was still in a dream or truly awake. He sucked in a deep breath, then pushed up from the floor. He peered over the edge of the be ~ M.M. Wilde

Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain. ~ Stephenie Meyer

What is it?" I hissed at Kamala. "I thought you were going to talk right then and there and then we would've been thrown out."
Kamala wouldn't look at me. "It's the Dharma Raja."
I froze. "What about him?"
"I can sense him." The blue veins that once stood out so prominently on her skin had begun to sink beneath pearlescent hair. Even the garnet gaze of her eyes had receded into something bright and black. Thoroughly animal.
"And?"
"He was here, but only for a moment."
"Where did he go?"
"I couldn't tell you that, not for all the salk-skin in the world." Kamala sighed.
"Do you know where he was?"
"That's the thing I was trying to tell you, maybe-queen!" exclaimed Kamala, pawing at the ground. "He was at the Chakara Forest. You were right."
I was right. There was a soft glow of warmth in that knowledge, even if knowing that I had just missed him rent through me like a new wound. I had trusted my instinct and it had been right. ~ Roshani Chokshi

On Friday night, you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hate. I don't know who you are and I don't want to know. You are dead souls. If that God for whom you blindly kill made us in his image, every bullet in my wife's body will have been a wound in his heart.

So, no, I will not give you the satisfaction of hating you. That is what you want, but to respond to your hate with anger would be to yield to the same ignorance that made you what you are. You want me to be scared, to see my fellow citizens through suspicious eyes, to sacrifice my freedom for security. You have failed. I will not change.

I saw her this morning. At last, after days and nights of waiting. She was as beautiful as when she went out on Friday evening, as beautiful as when I fell madly in love with her more than twelve years ago. Of course I'm devastated by grief, I grant you that small victory, but it will be short-lived. I know that she will be with us every day and that we will see each other in the paradise of free souls to which you will never have access.

There are only two of us – my son and myself – but we are stronger than all the armies of the world. Anyway, I don't have any more time to waste on you, as I must go to see Melvil, who is waking up from his nap. He is only seventeen months old. He will eat his snack as he does every day, then we will play as we do every day, and all his life this ~ Antoine Leiris

You're right," Jacks said. "You're not part of my world. You're not one of those girls. And maybe that's why."
"Why what?"
"Why I can't stop thinking about you."
Maddy rolled her eyes. "Guys like you don't say that to girls like me."
"I've never said that to anyone, actually," Jacks corrected. "In fact, I've never done anything like this before." He let out a little laugh. "How am I doing?"
He swallowed hard, trying to push down his nervousness. He was astonished to realize he was nervous. Somehow being around Maddy just put him in a different space. Jacks felt so present.
Maddy stared at him, letting the anger and frustration surge through her.
"Why are you doing this to me?" she asked finally.
He paused, considering.
"I'm being honest. I know you may not believe me. But I haven't been able to not think about you. When we were in the back at the restaurant, and . . ." Jacks's voice trailed off, his face coloring. "I still feel terrible about what I did. I lied to you and, even though I had good reasons for it, it was wrong of me."
Maddy studied him. Was he telling the truth?
Jacks smiled. "I mean this in the best possible way: I'm not going to leave you alone until you let me make it up to you. I'm serious. I'll be here every night. You might as well get me some pajamas and a toothbrush."
Despite her best efforts not to, Maddy laughed. She looked at Jacks and could see the faintest twinkle of light ~ Scott Speer

My hands were paralyzed, one wrapped around the handle of the Hyena's sword, spikes sticking through the flesh and out the back of hand, thumb and fingers, too painful for me to let go of it. The other hand was tangled by the locket and the cord that surrounded the imp's book, fingers bent back out of position. When I moved, it had been a jerky, frustrated movement, the length of the sword, the pain, and the weight of the sword and book all frustrating my attempts to interact with the world.

My arms were cracked open like a hard plastic doll, and all that was within were feathers of mixed, dull colors, sticking to one another. I couldn't move fast enough to catch up to anyone. I was too tired, too gaunt, an old man in a young-looking body, and the objects bound to my hands were too awkward to allow me to open doors easily or even walk through a crowded area without banging them on something.

I couldn't close my eyes, because something black and monstrous slithered beneath the surface every time I did. When I breathed, it was like I was having the heart attack again. The air I spent was air that I couldn't replenish by any means. I was deflating, losing substance.

There was nothing to do but stand there, too tired to move, arms spread like I was crucified, or a bird in mid-flight, staring at Rose and her gathered summonings, with Pauz perched on her shoulder. I somehow knew that words would cost me more of that vital substance than I could affo ~ Wildbow

The ceaseless rain is falling fast,
And yonder gilded vane,
Immovable for three days past,
Points to the misty main,
It drives me in upon myself
And to the fireside gleams,
To pleasant books that crowd my shelf,
And still more pleasant dreams,
I read whatever bards have sung
Of lands beyond the sea,
And the bright days when I was young
Come thronging back to me.
In fancy I can hear again
The Alpine torrent's roar,
The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,
The sea at Elsinore.
I see the convent's gleaming wall
Rise from its groves of pine,
And towers of old cathedrals tall,
And castles by the Rhine.
I journey on by park and spire,
Beneath centennial trees,
Through fields with poppies all on fire,
And gleams of distant seas.
I fear no more the dust and heat,
No more I feel fatigue,
While journeying with another's feet
O'er many a lengthening league.
Let others traverse sea and land,
And toil through various climes,
I turn the world round with my hand
Reading these poets' rhymes.
From them I learn whatever lies
Beneath each changing zone,
And see, when looking with their eyes,
Better than with mine own. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Bells Screamed all off key, wrangling together as they collided in midair, horns and whistles mingled shrilly with cries of human distress; sulphur-colored light ex-ploded through the black windowpane and flashed away in darkness. Miranda waking from a dreamless sleep asked without expecting an answer, "What is happening?" for there was a bustle of voices and footsteps in the corridor, and a sharpness in the air; the far clamour went on, a furious exasperated shrieking like a mob in revolt.

The light came on, and Miss Tanner said in a furry voice, "Hear that? They're celebrating . It's the Armistice. The war is over, my dear." Her hands trembled. She rattled a spoon in a cup, stopped to listen, held the cup out to Miranda. From the ward for old bedridden women down the hall floated a ragged chorus of cracked voices singing, "My country, 'tis of thee…"

Sweet land… oh terrible land of this bitter world where the sound of rejoicing was a clamour of pain, where ragged tuneless old women, sitting up waiting for their evening bowl of cocoa, were singing, "Sweet land of Liberty-"

"Oh, say, can you see?" their hopeless voices were asking next, the hammer strokes of metal tongues drowning them out. "The war is over," said Miss Tanner, her underlap held firmly, her eyes blurred. Miranda said, "Please open the window, please, I smell death in here. ~ Katherine Anne Porter

I want my life to be a celebration of slowness.

Walking through the sage from our front door, I am gradually drawn into the well-worn paths of deer. They lead me to Round Mountain and the bloodred side canyons below Castle Rock. Sometimes I see them, but often I don't. Deer are quiet creatures, who, when left to their own nature, move slowly. Their large black eyes absorb all shadows, especially the flash of predators. And their ears catch each word spoken. But today they walk ahead with their halting prance, one leg raised, then another, and allow me to follow them. I am learning how to not provoke fear and flight among deer. We move into a pink, sandy wash, their black-tipped tails like eagle feathers. I lose sight of them as they disappear around the bend.

On the top of the ridge I can see for miles.... Inside this erosional landscape where all colors eventually bleed into the river, it is hard to desire anything but time and space.

Time and space. In the desert there is space. Space is the twin sister of time. If we have open space then we have open time to breath, to dream, to dare, to play, to pray to move freely, so freely, in a world our minds have forgotten but our bodies remember. Time and space. This partnership is holy. In these redrock canyons, time creates space--an arch, an eye, this blue eye of sky. We remember why we love the desert; it is our tactile response to light, to silence, and to stillness.

Hand on stone -- ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Back in my room, I woke to a strange scratching coming from the air-conditioning vent. It began with hesitance, a creature feeling its way around a new environment. After a few minutes, the scratching gained a rhythm - shka shka shkashka shka shka - the rhythm of work that some small rodent figured would bring it to freedom. Consistency. Work without interruption, work with intensity. Surely, working at a steady pace, without breaks, the creature could reach its goal. I listened to my companion, refusing to take away its dignity by opening the vent. It took twenty minutes for the rhythm to reach its climax - shkakakakashkakakakashkakakaka, now with true desperation, as the rodent beat at the world to convince it of its worth, not a plea but a demand: Hear me! Let me out! I am here! I decided it was time for relief for the both of us, and when I stood up I saw a small brown nose peeking through the bars, two black eyes fixed on mine. I unscrewed the cover with a coin. When I opened it, a small tail was peeking from a dark corner deep in the shaft. It was hiding from me. It would not be rescued. I tried to reach the tail without any luck. I sat on my bed with the vent uncovered for an hour, waiting for my new fried to come out. It didn't. I put the cover back on, and while I was fastening the last screw, the nose appeared again, followed by the laborious scratching. Work will save me. Diligent, patient, never-ending. It must.
I put a coat on and walked outside. ~ Jaroslav Kalfar

Baseball shaded my entire outlook on life, because that's how I first saw the world. I looked at everything, even today, through what I learned about the game. Like pacing yourself, focusing yourself, preparing yourself for what you want to do, keeping yourself healthy for the game. I do all that through the eyes of a ballplayer. ~ Kurt Russell

He looked into her eyes and said "When everything falls apart, and the day my soul refuses to move any further, I'll come back home. A home that fills me with courage and love. My home neither has doors and nor windows, All it have is walls. The walls that beat every second. And it has a pair of eyes too. Through which I can see this world more beautifully than I ever did". ~ Akshay Vasu

What is heaven," he asked, staring into my eyes, "but freedom, and beauty, and comfort?"
"And salvation," I added.
"Yes, of course"-he smiled-"but what is heaven alone? It is a dream for these pitiful creatures blundering through their common lives, eager to see what lies in the world beyond in the hopes that it may be better than what they have here. ~ Alisa M. Libby

Or is it the opposite-that the US has moved so far and so fast toward cultural permissiveness that we've reached a kind of apsidal point? It might be instructive to try seeing things from the perspective of, say, a God-fearing hard-working rural-Midwestern military vet. It's not that hard. Imagine gazing through his eyes at the world of MTV and the content of video games, at the gross sexualization of children's fashions, at Janet Jackson flashing her aureole on what's supposed to be a holy day. Imagine you're him having to explain to your youngest what oral sex is and what it's got to do with a US president. Ads for penis enlargers and Hot Wet Sluts are popping up out of nowhere on your family's computer. Your kids' school is teaching them WWII and Vietnam in terms of Japanese internment and the horrors of My Lai. Homosexuals are demanding holy matrimony; your doctor's moving away because he can't afford the lawsuit insurance; illegal aliens want driver's licenses; Hollywood elites are bashing America and making millions from it; the president's ridiculed for reading his Bible; priests are diddling kids left and right. Shit, the country's been directly attacked, and people aren't supporting our commander in chief.

Assume for a moment that it's not silly to see things this man's way. What cogent, compelling, relevant message can the center and left offer him? Can we bear to admit that we've actually helped set him up to hear "We 're better than they are" not as twi ~ David Foster Wallace

We Can't Be Beat"

I was the Duke of Earl
The Duke of Earl
But it couldn't last
I was the Pony Express
But I ran out of gas

Golden dreams
Golden dreams
All lose their glow
I don't need perfection
I love the whole

Give me a life
That needs correction
Nobody loves
Loves perfection

Loneliness
Loneliness
Will run you through
All the kids are laughing
I'm laughing too

If you want my eyes
Take my eyes
They're always true
If you want my heart
Take my heart
It's right here for you

It's been so long
Been so long
But I made it through
It's been so long
Been so long
But I made it through
It's been so long

We'll never leave
We can't be beat
We can't be beat
We'll never leave
We can't be beat
The world is ours
We can't be beat
We can't be beat ~ The Walkmen

I am very much a scientist, and so I naturally have thought about religion also through the eyes of a scientist. When I do that, I see religion not denominationally, but in a more, let us say, deistic sense. I have been influence in my thinking by the writing of Einstein who has made remarks to the effect that when he contemplated the world he sensed an underlying Force much greater than any human force. I feel very much the same. There is a sense of awe, a sense of reverence, and a sense of great mystery. ~ Walter Kohn

Jesus kept it simple. The lesson wasn't complicated. 'I speak; you believe My word; your son will be fine.' We complicate what God has made simple by seeing the world through human eyes. We want to see in order to believe and presume that our limitations are His. ~ Charles R. Swindoll

Being on that pitcher's mound, it's the one thing I'm really good at. The one thing I haven't fucked up. And when I'm on the field, everything else fades away. You know?" He turned to look at me, his eyes craving understanding.
I smiled and he continued. "It's like my mind is clear when I'm out there. It's not about my mom or my dad or the stupid shit I've done. It's about me, the ball, and the batter. It's the one place in the world where I feel like I'm in control. Like I have a say in what happens around me."
I stopped my head from nodding in agreement once I realized that I was doing it. "I feel that way when I'm taking pictures. Anything that I'm not seeing through my lens fades away in the background. And I get to frame my picture any way I choose. I get to dictate how it looks. What's in it. What isn't. Behind that lens I have complete control in how things are seen."
He smiled, his dimples indenting his cheeks. "You get it. ~ J. Sterling

Unconditional Love - Love Without Condition


I love you as you are, as you seek to find your own special way to relate to the world.
I honour your choices to learn in the way you feel is right for you.


I know it is important that you are the person you want to be and not someone that I or others think you "should" be. I realise that I cannot know what is best for you, although perhaps sometimes I think I do.

I have not been where you have been, viewing life from the angle you have. I do not know what you have chosen to learn, how you have chosen to learn it, with whom or in what time period. I have not walked life looking through your eyes, so how can I know what you need.

I allow you to be in the world without a thought or word of judgement from me about the deeds you undertake. I see no error in the things you say and do. In this place where I am, I see that there are many ways to perceive and experience the different facets of our world. I allow without reservation the choices you make in each moment. I make no judgement of this, for if I would deny your right to your evolution, then I would deny that right for myself and all others.

To those who would choose a way I cannot walk, whilst I may not choose to add my power and my energy to this way, I will never deny you the gift of love that God has bestowed within me, for all creation. As I love you, so I shall be loved. As I sow, so shall I reap.
Sandy Stevenson

I'd stand at the front of the classroom, teaching my primary-school charges basic facts about language, life, the world, and I'd find that at the same time I was teaching myself these basic facts all over again - filtered through the eyes and minds of these children. Done the right way, this was a refreshing experience. Profound, even. I got along well with my pupils, their mothers, and my fellow teachers. Still ~ Haruki Murakami

If- if I could find a way to free you," I whispered, "would you walk the world above with me?"
My back was to the Goblin King; I could not face him. It was a long time before he answered.
"Oh, Elisabeth," he said. "I would go anywhere with you."
I turned around. His eyes deepened in color and for a moment, just for the merest glimpse, I could see what he would have been like as a mortal man. If he had been allowed to live the course of his life, from the child he had been to the man he would have become. A musician- a violinist. I ran back into the circle of alder trees, wanting the circle of his arms around me. I reached out my hands, and his fingers brushed mine, but we passed through each other like water, like a mirage. We were each nothing but a shimmering illusion, a candle flame we could not hold.
And yet, the Goblin King was still here, in the Goblin Grove, with me. He stood in the Underground while I stood in the world above, but our hearts beat within the same space.
"Don't look back," he said.
I nodded. I love you, I wanted to say. But I knew these words would break me.
"Elisabeth."
The Goblin King was smiling. Not the pointed smile of the Lord of Mischief or Der Erlkönig, but a crooked one. Twisted to one side, lopsided and goofy, it cracked my heart open and I bled inside.
He mouthed a word at me. A name. "You've always had it, Elisabeth," he said softly. "For it is you I gave my soul. ~ S. Jae-Jones

You are aware, I suppose, that I lived through two years of torture? Two years in hell, so I can stand before you now. Or lean before you, twisted as an old tree root. A crippled, shambling, wretched mockery of a man, eh, Lord Hoff? Let us be honest with one another. Sometimes I lose control of my own leg. My own eyes. My own face." He snorted. "If you can call it a face. My bowels, too, are rebellious. I often wake up daubed in my own shit. I find myself in constant pain, and the memories of everything that I have lost nag at me, endlessly." He felt his left eye twitching. Let it twitch. "So you can see how, despite my constant efforts to be a man of sunny temper, I find that I despise the world, and everything in it, and myself most of all. A regrettable state of affairs, for which there is no remedy. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Romantic waves beat deep in my chest of playful untouchable thoughts of you... As dreams are the threads I weave with care the path for you to me...the sky above lagoon with lovely lights, soft music, slow dancing... You are the turquoise sea, and I, an azure sky. The sweet caressing story of the day...much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth... You feel me like I feel you... The soothing voice with laughter mine sprinkle all over you comforting through the lonely nights when we are the world apart...eternity within your reach... You search your heart when I am away... It's here, it's with me... Your breath coincides with the rhythm of mine. So breathe and let your soul paint vision within... I am with you, and hold you close...with peaceful lullaby... ~ Oksana Rus

I licked my dry lips, glancing around at everyone staring at us. Finally I looked up into Cole's handsome face. "I'm here because I love you, and I need to ask you something." I took a deep breath. It was time to go big.

I lowered myself to one knee.

Cole's eyes grew round and I heard a few female gasps behind him. "Shannon, what - "

"Cole Walker, I once told you in fear that you were nothing, but there has never been a day of your life that that was true and there has never been a day I've ever really thought that. You've been extraordinary to me since we were fifteen." I smiled shakily, feeling vulnerable and frightened but hopeful too as he stared down at me with growing tenderness in his expression. "Apart from Logan I've never had a real family. The kind you can count on through everything. The kind that gives you second, third, fourth chances because the other option is no option at all. Because they love you and they're there for you. Unconditionally. Logan was the only one who ever gave me that. Until you. You're my family, Cole. I want you to be my family forever." I laughed hoarsely. "I don't have a ring or anything. I just have me. And I know I'm not perfect and I know you deserve perfect . . . but I love you more than anyone else in this world and I promise you I'll never let you forget that again." My heart slowed its rapid beating as a sense of calm came over me. A sense of rightness. It was as if I'd found the balance I'd been m ~ Samantha Young

Peeling an Orange

Between you and a bowl of oranges I lie nude
Reading The World's Illusion through my tears.
You reach across me hungry for global fruit,
Your bare arm hard, furry and warm on my belly.
Your fingers pry the skin of a naval orange
Releasing tiny explosions of spicy oil.
You place peeled disks of gold in a bizarre pattern
On my white body. Rearranging, you bend and bite
The disks to release further their eager scent.
I say "Stop, you're tickling," my eyes still on the page.
Aromas of groves arise. Through green leaves
Glow the lofty snows. Through red lips
Your white teeth close on a translucent segment.
Your face over my face eclipses The World's Illusion.
Pulp and juice pass into my mouth from your mouth.
We laugh against each other's lips. I hold my book
Behind your head, still reading, still weeping a little.
You say "Read on, I'm just an illusion," rolling
Over upon me soothingly, gently unmoving,
Smiling greenly through long lashes. And soon
I say "Don't stop. Don't disillusion me."
Snows melt. The mountain silvers into many a stream.
The oranges are golden worlds in a dark dream. ~ Virginia Adair

And the voice spoke even more deliberately: ' ... but remember what is under the ocean of clouds: eternity.'
And suddenly that tranquil world, the world of such simple harmony that you discover as you rise above the clouds, took on an unfamiliar quality in my eyes. All that gentleness became a trap. In my mind's eye I saw that vast white trap laid out, right under my feet. Beneath it reigned neither the restlessness of men nor the living tumult and motion of cities, as one might have thought, but a silence that was even more absolute, a more final peace. That viscous whiteness was turning before my eyes into the boundary between the real and the unreal, between the known and the unknowable. And I was already beginning to sense that a spectacle has no meaning except when seen through a culture, a civilization, a professional craft. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Ellie I have never in life ... ever sweetheart ... experienced these feelings that i have for you. You walk into a room and i have to catch my breath at the sight of you. You flash your beautiful smile at me and there's not a damn thing in this world I wouldnt do for you. Your laugh moves through my body like a jolt of electricity. Your eyes captivate mine; your lips bring me to my knee's. I want to know every part of you Ellie. I'm just as confused by these feelings as you are sweetheart but i want you to know something, I'll never push you or give up on us I promise you that. Please Ellie just let me in. Let me prove to you how much i want to be with you ~ Kelly Elliott

I threw the carving of my goddess as high and far as I could, into the sky above the waves, and watched its arcing path through the air. As it fell, I saw a golden shape come diving toward the plummeting image, a huge eagle that seized the monster's tooth in his talons. The feathers on his breast skimmed the sea before he soared back into the sky and flew away.
"Did you see that, La--Glaucus?" Milo's voice sounded in my ear. He'd woken from his nap and come up behind me unexpectedly. I almost jumped overboard with surprise. "It's a good sign, isn't it? Or is it predicting that something's waiting to snatch us away? If that's so, I swear I won't let it touch you. But is it a good sign after all? Ah, what does it mean?"
"You worry too much, Milo," I said as if I had no such worries of my own. "If every hero stopped to think about all the what-ifs in his path, none of us would ever take one step beyond our own doorways."
"But you saw what it did," Milo protested. "The eagle is Lord Zeus's bird. We can't just ignore it. Ah, what does it mean?"
"What it means," I said, smiling, "is that you and I have just seen either the world's most unmistakable omen or the world's most nearsighted eagle." May the gods stand by us, I thought as I laughed and Milo stared at me in dismay. May they favor and guide us, but may they never hold us hostage through our fears.
"Don't look at me like that," I told him, wiping sea spray from my eyes. "I haven't said anything wrong. ~ Esther M. Friesner

(Tania Unsworth) writes of a time when she was a "girl of eleven, with a flashlight under the covers, devouring The Chronicles of Narnia" - when there was a complete immersion in the world of the novel, when one connected with a book's protagonist and experienced the world through the eyes of the "other" in a powerful, beautiful way.

There was an intensity to reading then, a kind of total involvement in story that is hard to reproduce as an adult. I know too much now about tired plots and clichés. I am always comparing one thing to another, recognizing devices, identifying styles. No matter how good or bad I find something, I'm always aware of my response, slightly detached, consciously enjoying or not enjoying. ~ Tania Unsworth

I am not a machine. For what can a machine know of the smell of wet grass in the morning, or the sound of a crying baby? I am the feeling of the warm sun against my skin; I am the sensation of a cool wave breaking over me. I am the places I have never seen, yet imagine when my eyes are closed. I am the taste of another's breath, the color of her hair.
You mock me for the shortness of my life span, but it is this very fear of dying which breathes life into me. I am the thinker who thinks of thought. I am curiosity, I am reason, I am love, and I am hatred. I am indifference. I am the son of a father, who in turn was a father's son. I am the reason my mother laughed and the reason my mother cried. I am wonder and I am wondrous. Yes, the world may push your buttons as it passes through your circuitry. But the world does not pass through me. It lingers. I am in it and it is in me. I am the means by which the universe has come to know itself. I am the thing no machine can ever make. I am meaning. ~ Bernard Beckett

I see the world through my eyes. It's sometimes a strange world. ~ Keira Knightley

And the truth is that then I felt a shiver and I looked at the one who was awake, who was still studying the only poem in the world by Cesárea Tinajero, and I said to him: I think something's wrong with your friend. And the one who was reading raised his eyes and looked at me as if I were behind a window or he were on the other side of a window, and said: relax, nothing's wrong. Goddamn psychotic boys! As if speaking in one's sleep were nothing! As if making promises in one's sleep were nothing! And then I looked at the walls of my front room, my books, my photographs, the stains on the ceiling, and then I looked at them and I saw them as if through a window, one of them with his eyes open and the other with his eyes shut, but both of them looking, looking out? looking in? I don't know, all I know is that their faces had turned pale, as if they were at the North Pole, and I told them so, and the one who was sleeping breathed noisily and said: it's more as if the North Pole had descended on Mexico City, Amadeo, that's what he said, and I asked: boys, are you cold? a rhetorical question, or a practical question, because if the answer was yes, I was determined to make them coffee right away, but ultimately it was really a rhetorical question, if they were cold all they had to do was move away from the window, and then I said: boys, is it worth it? is it worth it? is it really worth it? and the one who was asleep said Simonel. ~ Roberto Bolano

Things would hurt me in a big way because I didn't seem to have a very thick layer of skin, but this also meant I had extreme empathy for other people. I think perhaps that's what makes my songs hit home for some people, because I've tried to see the world through their eyes and I recognise- even just for a second- that we all ultimately are struggling with the same things. ~ Missy Higgins

I took in a deep breath, and smoke twisted around my head as I let it slip through my teeth. "Do you know what my favorite show was when I was a little kid?"

The look again. "I would have no idea."

"Doctor Who. British sci-fi show."

"I am familiar with it. Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Matt - "

"No," I said. "The new show's great, but I grew up on the old one. The low-budget, rubber monster show with Tom Baker and Peter Davison. I watched it on PBS all the time as a kid."

I looked out at the dark ruins of Hollywood, at the stumbling shadows dotting the streets as far as you could see. The only other living person within half a mile was standing behind me, her eyes boring into my head.

"The Doctor didn't have super-powers or weapons or anything like that. He was just a really smart guy who always tried to do the right thing. To help people, no matter what. That struck me when I was a kid. The idea that no matter how cold and callous and heartless the world seemed, there was somebody out there who just wanted to make life better. Not better for worlds or countries in some vague way. Just better for people trying to live their lives, even if they didn't know about him."

I turned back to her and tapped my chest. "That's what this suit's always been about. Not scaring people like you or Gorgon do. Not some sort of pseudo-sexual roleplay or repressed emotions. I wear this thing, all these brigh ~ Peter Clines

I squinted through the big window, a portal to another world, trying to get a better view of the primal love scene before us. All I could see was a mass of wriggling fur and finger-like toes until my eyes focused in on one male and two females kissing, ear-tonguing and giving each other enthusiastic oral sex, punctuated with occasional somersaults, smacks and nibbles on fruit and leaves. Sometimes they interacted as a threesome. Other times, two would cavort together, while the third played with herself, alternating between fingering and using a red rubber ball as a kind of sex toy, rubbing and bouncing it vigorously against her large pink vulva. ~ Susan Block

Tears

I struggle with myself to keep them inside
The feelings that I have tried to deny.

I tell everyone that I am okay
When I battle to make it through each day.

In my world of illusions where everything was right
I cried myself to sleep each night.

You notice the tears filling my eyes
As I begin to shed my shallow disguise.

My pain, confusion and a few of my fears
Drop to the ground in the form of my tears.

It feels so good to release the emotions built up
To say what I feel instead of bottling them up.

As I cry a weight seems to lift from me
I feel so much better now that you can see.

And now that you know what it is that I feel
Will you fight the battle with me and
help my wounds heal? ~ Arianna Johnson

Next to this central belief which,while I was reading, would be constantly reaching out from my inner self to the outer world, towards the discovery of truth, came the emotions aroused in me by the action in which I was taking part, for these afternoons were crammed with more dramatic events than occur, often, in a whole lifetime. These were the events taking Place in the book I was reading. It is true that the people concerned in them were not what Francoise would have called "real people." .... it matters not that the actions, the feelings of this new order of creatures appear to us in the guise of truth, since we have made them our own, since it is in ourselves that they are happening, that they are holding in thrall, as we feverishly turn over the pages of the book, our quickened breath and staring eyes. And once the novelist has brought us to this state, in which, as in all purely mental states, every emotion is multiplied ten-fold, into which his book comes to disturb us as might a dream, but a dream more lucid and more abiding than those which come to us in sleep, why then, for the space of an hour he sets free within us all the joys and sorrows in the world, a few of which only we should have to spend years of our actual life in getting to know, and the most intense of which would never be revealed to us of their development prevents us from perceiving them. It is the same in life; the heart changes, and it is our worst sorrow; but we know it only through reading, thr ~ Marcel Proust

A vast mirror hung above his desk, its gilt frame a horror of twisted vines and sharp leaves, angry looking foliage. I thought of it as Eden Lost. The first occasion I was alone in the room I stepped to the glass and touched my reflection with a finger. It was the only time I'd seen myself in a mirror, but the glass was so wavy I could have been staring into water. I was struck by how much my mouth tipped downward in a child's pout, and I hadn't realized I watched the world through my eyelashes. I didn't observe myself for very long. My eyes were the same shape as my mother's, curved like wings; watching them made me lonesome. ~ Susan Power

That night, while you were asleep, I unbuttoned your pajama jacket and looked at what he'd done to you. Afterward, I drove back to his house and very nearly killed him. If he hadn't started crying and begging me to stop, I…" He let out the angry breath. "That was when I realized how I felt about you," he added, his eyes meeting hers. "A man wants to protect what he considers his own. It started then, that night."
She was surprised by what he was telling her. "You…looked at me?"
He nodded. His eyes narrowed. "You had the most beautiful little breasts," he said roughly. "And they were covered with bruises. I wanted to kiss the bruises, take you into my bed and hold you, just hold you, all night long so that you'd be safe. I didn't dare give in to the impulse, of course," he added with the first touch of amusement he'd shown since her arrival. "My mother would have horsewhipped me."
She felt waves of surprised pleasure lance through her body. "I never knew."
"I was always known for my poker face," he murmured. "But it was sheer agony to be around you. The older you got, the worse it was. It was inevitable that one day I'd go mad and take you." He sighed. "The most hellish part of the whole thing was knowing that all I had to do was touch you and you'd let me do anything I liked to you."
She traced the mouth of her coffee cup. "I loved you," she said quietly.
"I know."
There was a world of pain in the words. She looked up into his black eyes and ~ Diana Palmer

The blackness took all but this: a face.
The face was as alien to me as the faceless serpentine tentacles of my last host body would be to this new body. I'd seen this kind of face in the images I had been given to prepare for this world. It was hard to tell them apart, to see the tiny variations in color and shape that were the only markers of the individual. So much the same, all of them. Noses centered in the middle of the sphere, eyes above and mouths below, ears around the sides. A collection of senses, all but touch, concentrated in one place. Skin over bones, hair growing on the crown and in strange furry lines above the eyes. Some had more fur lower down on the jaw; those were always males. The colors ranged through the brown scale from pale cream to a deep almost-black. Aside from that, how to know one from the other? ~ Stephenie Meyer

Love's Question "
And is this all true,
My ever-loving friend?
That the lightning-flash of the light in my eyes
Makes the clouds in your heart explode and blaze,
Is this true?
That my sweet lips are red as a blushing new bride,
My ever-loving friend,
Is this true?

That a tree of paradise flowers withing me,
That my foosteps ring like vinas beneath me,
Is this true?
That the night sheds drops of dew at the sight of me,
That the dawn surrounds me with light from delight in me,
Is this true?
That the touch of my hot cheek intoxicates the breeze,
My ever-loving friend,
Is this true?

That daylight hides in the dark of my hair,
That my arms hold life and death in their power,
Is this true?
That the earth can be wrapped in the end of my sari,
That my voice makes the world fall silent to hear me,
Is this true?
That the univrse is nothing but me and what loves me,
My ever-loving friend,
Is this true?

That for me alone your love has been waiting
Through worlds and ages awake and wandering,
Is this true?
That my voice, eyes, lips have brought you relief,
In a trice, from the cycle of life after life,
Is this true?
That you read on my soft forehead inginite Truth,
My ever-loving friend,
Is this true? ~ Rabindranath Tagore

I, who cannot see, find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough shaggy bark of a pine ... Yet, those who have eyes apparently see little. The panorama of color and action which fills the world is taken for granted ... It is a great pity that, in the world of light, the gift of sight is used only as a mere convenience rather than as a means of adding fullness to life. ~ Helen Keller

you were last seen walking through a field of pianos. no. a museum of mouths. in the kitchen of a bustling restaurant, cracking eggs and releasing doves. no. eating glow worms and waltzing past my bedroom. last seen riding the subway, literally, straddling its metal back, clutching electrical cables as reins. you were wearing a dress made out of envelopes and stamps, this was how you travelled. i was the mannequin in the storefront window you could have sworn moved. the library card in the book you were reading until that dog trotted up and licked your face. the cookie with two fortunes. the one jamming herself through the paper shredder, afraid to talk to you. the beggar, hat outstretched bumming for more minutes. the phone number on the bathroom stall with no agenda other than a good time. the good time is a picnic on water, or a movie theatre that only plays your childhood home videos and no one hushes when you talk through them. when they play my videos i throw milk duds at the screen during the scenes i watch myself letting you go – lost to the other side of an elevator – your face switching to someone else's with the swish of a geisha's fan. my father could have been a travelling salesman. i could have been born on any doorstep. there are 2,469,501 cities in this world, and a lot of doorsteps. meet me on the boardwalk. i'll be sure to wear my eyes. do not forget your face. i could never. ~ Megan Falley

For myself, I wouldn't have lifted a finger to own a Rolex, a pair of Nikes or a BMW Z3; in fact, I had never succeeded in identifying the slightest difference between designer goods and non-designer goods. In the eyes of the world, I was clearly wrong. I was aware of this: I was in a minority, and consequently in the wrong. There had to be a difference between Yves Saint-Laurent shirts and other shirts, between Gucci moccasins and Andre moccasins. I was alone in not perceiving this difference; it was an infirmity which I could not cite as grounds for condemning the world. Does one ask a blind man to set himself up as an expert on post-impressionist painting? Through my blindness, however involuntary, I set myself apart from a living human reality powerful enough to incite both devotion and crime. These youths, through their half-savage instincts, undoubtedly discerned the presence of beauty; their desire was laudable, and perfectly in keeping with social norms; it was merely a question of rectifying the inappropriate way in which it was expressed. ~ Michel Houellebecq

I'll let them talk
I'll let them hate
I owe no one an explanation nor an apology
As long as they don't see the world through my eyes or walk a single mile in my shoes,
I'll always be the only one who knows the truth,
The only one who really understands.
So all of their judgments and opinions will forever be irrelevant
, never mattered and never had anything to do with who really I am … ~ Samiha Totanji

My favourite hiding place was in the world of Charles Dickens. I knew every word he had ever cared to collect in a novel by heart. The sentences formed in my mind before my eyes could skim through the letters. ~ Anna Jane Greenville

In my early twenties, I was traveling through a small town in Turkey called Cappadocia, when the divine spark of faith reignited within me like lightning. All it took was my eyes to fall upon a woman who was drowned in her worship of God. I watched her pray in an old seventeenth-century animal barn, as if nothing in the world existed but her divine Lover. She did not robotically repeat words of prayer like a formula; rather, every word she uttered came with a silent "I love you, my beloved Lord." Her words were like synchronized dancers swimming in unison in the ocean of love that poured out of her. She was the first person I had ever seen in my life that not only prayed but she herself became the prayer. ~ A. Helwa

The writers who get my personal award are the ones who show exceptional promise of looking at their lives in this world as candidly and searchingly and feelingly as they know how and then of telling the rest of us what they have found there most worth finding. We need the eyes of writers like that to see through. We need the blood of writers like that in our veins. ~ Frederick Buechner

It's easy to look back and say if things had been perfect, I could have accommodated all of those things into my life. But as a therapist I do not allow that word to be uttered in my office after the first session, because I believe the only reason for the existence of that word is to make us feel bad. It's the only word in the language (that I know of) that is defined in common usage by what can't be. It sets a vague standard that can't be met because it is never truly characterized. I prefer to think that we're all out here doing our best under the circumstances, looking at our world through the only eyes through which we can look at it: our own. ~ Chris Crutcher

Just after midnight, I text my parents who live in Florida: Please tell me you didn't help elect him.

No reply.

The next morning, New York City wakes up with a wet, gray yawn. The air is thick with mist. The city moves at a slower, muffled pace. New Yorkers rarely make eye contact; today isn't much different, except when eyes meet, they lock for a moment in shared grief. Everyone's shoulders bend forward, the world weighing heavier on them than it did yesterday.

The sidewalks and the coffee shops are quiet. Even the subway paces through its underground veins in somber silence. My husband tells me: "The city hasn't been this quiet since 9/11."

- Melissa Lirtsman ~ Erin Passons

*I treat my poor heart like a sick child, and gratify its every fancy
* The human race is but a monotonous affair
*and O Wilhelm, I vowed at that moment, that a maiden whom I loved, or for whom I felt the slightest attachment, never, never should waltz with any one else but with me, if I went to perdition for it! - you will understand this.
*I felt as though a dagger went through my heart.
* I gazed upon her rich dark eyes during these remarks, how my very soul gloated over her warm lips and fresh, glowing cheeks, how I became quite lost in the delightful meaning of her words, so much so, that I scarcely heard the actual expressions
*"As long as I see those eyes open, there is no fear of my falling asleep."
* I left her asking permission to visit her in the course of the day. She consented, and I went, and, since that time, sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course: I know not whether it is day or night; the whole world is nothing to me.
*We should deal with children as God deals with us, we are happiest under the influence of innocent delusions ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is not that we would oust the little people from the world,' he said, 'in order that we, who are no more than one step upwards from their littleness, may hold their world forever. It is the step we fight for an not ourselves... We are here, Brothers, to what end? To serve the spirit and the purpose that has been breathed into our lives. We fight not for ourselves - for we are but the momentary hands and eyes of the Life of the world... This earth is no resting place... We fight not for ourselves but for growth - growth that goes on forever. Tomorrow, whether we live or die, growth will conquer through us. That is the law of the spirit for ever more. To grow according to the will of God! To grow out of these cracks and crannies, out of these shadows and darknesses, into greatness and the light! Greater,' he said, speaking with slow deliberation, 'greater, my Brothers! And then - still greater. To grow, and again - to grow. To grow at last into the fellowship and understanding of God. Growing... Till the earth is no more than a footstool... Till the spirit shall have driven fear into nothingness, and spread...' He swung his arm heavenward: - 'There! ~ H.G. Wells

Ghost?" I asked.
Moon Man pointed to Valek. "Kiki's name for him. It makes sense," he said, seeing the look of confusion on my face. "To magical beings, we see the world through our magic. We see him with our eyes, but cannot see him with our magic. So he is like a ghost to us."
Valek listened to Moon Man. Although expressionless, I could tell by the rigid set to Valek's shoulders that he was prepared to strike.
"Another relative?" Valek asked.
A broad smile stretched Moon Man's lips. "Yes. I am her mother's uncle's wife's third cousin. ~ Maria V. Snyder

We take everything for granted, but when I'm with Angeline, I see the world through new eyes. She makes my world better. It's why she's so great. ~ Richelle Mead

My blind adoration of Omi was devoid of any element of conscious criticism, and still less did I have anything like a moral viewpoint where he was concern. Whenever I tried to capture the amorphous mass of my adoration within the confines of analysis, it would already have disappeared. If there be such a thing as love that has neither duration nor progress, this was precisely my emotion. The eyes through which I saw Omi were always those of a 'first glance' or, if I may say so, of the 'primeval glance'. It was purely an unconscious attitude on my part, a ceaselesseffort to protect my fourteen-yesr-old purity from the process of erosion.

Could this have been love? Grant it to be one form of love, for even though at first glance it seemed to retain its pristine form forever, simply repeating that form over and over again, it too had its own unique sort of debasement and decay. And it was a debasement more evil than that of any normal kind of love. Indeed, of all the kinds of decay in this world, decadent purity is the most malignant.

Nevertheless, in my unrequited love for Omi, in this the first love I encountered in life, I seemed like a baby bird keeping its truly innocent animal lusts hidden under its wing. I was being tempted, not by the desire of possession, but simply by unadorned temptation itself.

To say the least, while at school, particularly during a boring class, I could not take my eyes off Omi's profile. What more could I have done ~ Yukio Mishima

Back home, Chris struggled to readjust, physically and mentally. He also faced another decision-reenlist, or leave the Navy and start a new life in the civilian world.
This time, he seemed to be leaning toward getting out-he'd been discussing other jobs and had already talked to people about what he might do next.
It was his decision, one way or another. But if I'd been resigned to his reenlistment last go-around, this time I was far more determined to let him know I thought he should get out.
There were two important reasons for him to leave-our children. They really needed to have him around as they grew. And I made that a big part of my argument.
But the most urgent reason was Chris himself. I saw what the war was doing to him physically. His body was breaking down with multiple injuries, big and small. There were rings under his eyes even when he had slept. His blood pressure was through the roof. He had to wall himself off more and more.
I didn't think he could survive another deployment.
"I'll support you whatever you decide," I told him. "I want to be married to you. But the only way I can keep making sense of this is…I need to do the best for the kids and me. If you have to keep doing what is best for you and those you serve, at some point I owe it to myself and those I serve to do the same. For me, that is moving to Oregon."
For me, that meant moving from San Diego to Oregon, where we could live near my folks. That would give our so ~ Taya Kyle

Words are flying out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
are drifting thorough my open mind
Possessing and caressing me

Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Images of broken light which
dance before me like a million eyes
That call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
they tumble blindly as
they make their way across the universe

Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Sounds of laughter shades of life
are ringing through my open ears
exciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which
shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe

Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva ~ The Beatles

Glistening liquid pooled in two spots. Matthew was trying to clean it up, but his hands were shaking, his jaw working. I grabbed some towels from the linen closet and knelt beside him.
"I have this," I whispered.
Matthew sat back, lifting his head and closing his eyes. He let out a staggered breath. "This should've never happened."
Tear built in my eyes as I sopped up what was left of Adam. "I know."
They are all like my children. Now I've lost another, and for what? It doesn't make sense." His shoulders shook. "It never makes sense."
"I'm sorry." Wetness gathered on my cheeks, and I wiped at my face with my shoulder. "His is my fault. He was trying to protect me."
…. "It's not just your fault Katy. This was a world you stumbled into, one filled with treachery and greed. You weren't prepared for it. Neither are any of them."
I lifted my head, blinking back tears. "I trusted Blake when I should've trusted Daemon. I let this happen."
Matthew twisted toward me, grasping my cheeks. "You cannot take on the full responsibility for this. You didn't make the choices Blake did. You didn't force his hand."
I choked on a broken sob as grief tore through me. His words didn't ease the guilt, and he knew it. Then the strangest thing happened. He pulled me into his arms, and I broke. Sobs raked my entire body. I pressed my head against his shoulder, my body shaking his, or maybe he was crying for his loss, too. Time passed, and it became New Yea ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

We're gonna be fine as long as we stick together." She ran her hands through my hair and I closed my eyes. I fucking melted.
"It's you and me, Nova. You and me against the world. ~ Amie Knight

I reach up to brush my hair back out of my eyes so I can look around and attempt to determine what the hell is going on. The only three things that I know for certain took place last night are that one
small elves climbed up my body and tied my hair into a mass of tiny knots, two
I must have slept with my mouth open because something crawled into it and died and three
I was sucked through a vortex into some animated world where an anvil was dropped on my head. ~ Katja Millay

How clear she shines ! How quietly
I lie beneath her guardian light;
While heaven and earth are whispering me,
" To morrow, wake, but, dream to-night."
Yes, Fancy, come, my Fairy love !
These throbbing temples softly kiss;
And bend my lonely couch above
And bring me rest, and bring me bliss.

The world is going; dark world, adieu !
Grim world, conceal thee till the day;
The heart, thou canst not all subdue,
Must still resist, if thou delay !

Thy love I will not, will not share;
Thy hatred only wakes a smile;
Thy griefs may wound–thy wrongs may tear,
But, oh, thy lies shall ne'er beguile !
While gazing on the stars that glow
Above me, in that stormless sea,
I long to hope that all the woe
Creation knows, is held in thee !

And, this shall be my dream to-night;
I'll think the heaven of glorious spheres

[Page 104]
Is rolling on its course of light
In endless bliss, through endless years;
I'll think, there's not one world above,
Far as these straining eyes can see,
Where Wisdom ever laughed at Love,
Or Virtue crouched to Infamy;

Where, writhing 'neath the strokes of Fate,
The mangled wretch was forced to smile;
To match his patience 'gainst her hate,
His heart rebellious all the while.
Where Pleasure still will lead to wrong,
And helpless Reason warn in vain;
And ~ Emily Bronte