Still Quotes (page 172)
I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense. He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears. 'Come in! come in!' he sobbed. 'Cathy, do come. Oh, do - ONCE more! Oh! my heart's darling! hear me THIS time, Catherine, at last!' The spectre...
Emily Bronte
I could have had one life but insteads I had another because of this book my grandmother protected. What a miracle is that? I was taught to love beautiful things. I had a language in which to consider beauty. Later that extended to the opera, to the ballet, to architecture I saw, and even later still I came to realize that what I had seen in the paintings I could see in the fields or a river. I could see it in people. All of that I attribute to this book.
Ann Patchett
Then the sluice gates opened and Lotte said it had been a long time since she saw her brother, that her son was in prison in Mexico, that her husband was dead, that she had never remarried, that necessity and desperation had driven her to learn Spanish, that she still had trouble with the language, that her mother had died and her brother probably didn’t even know it, that she planned to sell the shop, that she had read a book by her brother on the plane, that the shock had almost killed her,...
Roberto Bolano
But why is it that within me "I don't want to" and "I want to" stand side by side? That is the chief horror of the matter; I continue to long for that happy death of yesterday. The horror of it is that even now, when I have integrated the logical function, when it becomes evident that that function contains death hidden within it, still I long for it with my lips, my arms, my heart, with every millimeter....
Yevgeny Zamyatin
... with men it's rush, rush, rush, every minute. I'm glad I'm a sedentary spider."What does sedentary mean?" asked Wilbur."Means I sit still a good part of the time and don't go wandering all over creation. I know a good thing when I see it, and my web is a good thing. I stay put and wait for what comes. Gives me a chance to think.
E. B. White
We catched fish, and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed, only a kind of low chuckle. We had mighty good weather, as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next.
Mark Twain
The clocks were striking midnight and the rooms were very still as a figure glided quietly from bed to bed, smoothing a coverlid here, settling a pillow there, and pausing to look long and tenderly at each unconscious face, to kiss each with lips that mutely blessed, and to pray the fervent prayers which only mothers utter.
Louisa May Alcott
When Mildred went to bed her stomach hurt from laughter, her heart ached from happiness. Then she remembered that while Veda had kissed her, that first moment when she had entered the house, she still hadn't kissed Veda. She tiptoed into the room she had hoped Veda would occupy, knelt beside the bed as she had knelt so many times in Glendale, took the lovely creature in her arms and kissed her, hard, on the mouth.
James M. Cain