Surface Quotes - Page 6

• The girls said she was too cynical about love, but how could you not be? On the surface, relations between men and women were all soft kisses and white gowns and hand-holding. But underneath they were a scary, complicated, ugly mess, just waiting to rise to the surface.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Girl, Kissing, Men

  J. Courtney Sullivan (2009). “Commencement”, p.96, Vintage

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• Inside that darkness, i saw rain falling on the sea. Rain softly falling on a vast sea, with no one there to see it. The rain strikes the surface of the sea, yet even the fish don't know it is raining.

  Haruki Murakami

  Rain, Fall, Sea

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Nov 30, 2015

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• There is something called the rapture of the deep, and it refers to what happens when a deep-sea diver spends too much time at the bottom of the ocean and can't tell which way is up. When he surfaces, he's liable to have a condition called the bends, where the body can't adapt to the oxygen levels in the atmosphere. All of this happens to me when I surface from a great book.

  Nora Ephron

  Ocean, Book, Oxygen

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• I laughed. Partly at the joke, partly at how Afghan humor never changed. Wars were waged, the Internet was invented, and a robot had rolled on the surface of Mars, and in Afghanistan we were still telling Mullah Nasruddin jokes.

  Khaled Hosseini

  War, Robots, Mars

  Khaled Hosseini (2010). “The Complete Khaled Hosseini: Digital box set”, p.122, A&C Black

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• Together, we looked down at the tiny house, the sole thing on this vast, flat surface. Like the only person living on the moon. It could be either lonely or peaceful, depending on how you looked at it. "It's a start," I said.

  Sarah Dessen

  Lonely, Moon, House

  Sarah Dessen (2011). “What Happened to Goodbye”, p.89, Penguin

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• You don't look back along time but down through it, like water. Sometimes this comes to the surface, sometimes that, sometimes nothing. Nothing goes away.

  Margaret Atwood

  Time, Water, Looks

  Margaret Atwood (1989). “Cat's Eye”, Bantam

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• ‎I have always been fascinated by the ocean, to dip a limb beneath its surface and know that I'm touching eternity, that it goes on forever until it begins here again.

  Lauren DeStefano

  Ocean, Forever, Touching

  Lauren DeStefano (2011). “The Seeds of Wither: EBook Sampler with Exclusive Short Story”, p.58, Simon and Schuster

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• Peeta rinses the pearl off in the water and hands it to me. “For you.” I hold it out on my palm and examine its iridescent surface in the sunlight. Yes, I will keep it. For the few remaining hours of my life I will keep it close. This last gift from Peeta. The only one I can really accept. Perhaps it will give me strength in the final moments.

  Suzanne Collins

  Hands, Giving, Water

  Suzanne Collins (2010). “Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)”, p.365, Scholastic Inc.

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• Cole grasped a handful of vials and syringes with one hand and dumped them on the island in front of me. They rolled and whirled in misshapen circles on the counter surface. "Here are our options." My ears rang. "We have more than one?" "Three, precisely," Cole said. He pointed to each in turn. "That one makes you a wolf. That one makes me a wolf. That one gives us both seizures.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Islands, Hands, Circles

  Maggie Stiefvater (2011). “Shiver Trilogy (Shiver, Linger, Forever)”, p.867, Scholastic Inc.

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• Since early morning he had been swimming in the river, in company with his friends the ducks. And when the ducks stood on their heads suddenly, as ducks will, he would dive down and tickle their necks, just under where their chins would be if ducks had chins, till they were forced to come to the surface again in a hurry, spluttering and angry and shaking their feathers at him, for it is impossible to say quite all you feel when your head is under water.

  Kenneth Grahame

  Morning, Swimming, Rivers

  Kenneth Grahame (2015). “The Wind in the Willows: Top 100 Classic Novels”, p.66, 谷月社

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• You are so terribly nimble, so clever. I distrust your cleverness. You make a wonderful pattern, everything is in its place, it looks convincingly clear, too clear. And meanwhile, where are you? Not on the clear surface of your ideas, but you have already sunk deeper, into darker regions, so that one only thinks one has been given all your thoughts, one only imagines you have emptied yourself in that clarity. But there are layers and layers - you're bottomless, unfathomable. Your clearness is deceptive. You are the thinker who arouses most confusion in me, most doubt, most disturbance.

  Anais Nin

  Clever, Thinking, Ideas

  "Henry and June". Book by Anais Nin, 1986.

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• That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Loneliness, People, Guilt

  Marilynne Robinson (2004). “Gilead: A Novel”, p.6, Macmillan

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• My tablecloth was missing in action and long, jagged scratches covered the table's surface.The scratches looked suspiciously like letters. I climbed on a chair and looked at it from above. MINE. Oh, that's great. Fantastic. So mature. Perhaps he would pull my pigtails next or stick a tack on my seat.

  Ilona Andrews

  Long, Missing, Scratches

  Ilona Andrews (2012). “Gunmetal Magic: A Novel in the World of Kate Daniels”, p.123, Penguin

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• But there is nothing enduring in the world, and therefore even joy in the second minute is already not as acute as in the first; in the third minute it becomes still weaker and finally merges unnoticeably with the usual condition of the soul, as a circle on the water, caused by the fall of a pebble, finally merges with the smooth surface.

  Nikolai Gogol

  Fall, Circles, Water

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• Extending his senses, Lorkin tried again to hear his mother’s surface thoughts. What he picked up seemed too out of character, however. He must be imagining it. Though…it was also odd that he would imagine his mother thinking such a string of curse words.

  Trudi Canavan

  Mother, Character, Thinking

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• If our lives are truly "hid with Christ in God," the astounding thing is that this hiddenness is revealed in all that we do and say and write. What we are is going to be visible in our art, no matter how secular (on the surface) the subject may be.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Art, Writing, May

  Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art”, p.102, Convergent Books

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• If she could have died...if she could have disappeared forever...but the solid surface of things refused to dissolve around her, and her body, her hateful hermaphrodite's body, continued in its stubborn, lumpen way, to live.

  J. K. Rowling

  Forever, Way To Live, Stubborn

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• My God, he couldn't help thinking, how terrible it is to be that age, to have emotions so near the surface that the slightest turbulence causes them to boil over. That, very simply, was what adulthood must be all about -- acquiring the skill to bury things more deeply. Out of sight and, whenever possible, out of mind.

  Richard Russo

  Thinking, Sight, Skills

  FaceBook post by Richard Russo from Aug 17, 2014

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• I'm disappointed in you, Adrian. I'm very disappointed. Reassembling myself was the first trick I learned. It didn't kill Osterman. Did you really think it would kill me? I have walked across the surface of the sun. I have witnessed events so tiny and so fast, they could hardly be said to have occurred at all. But you, Adrian, you're just a man. The world's smartest man poses no more threat to me than does its smartest termite.

  Alan Moore

  Men, Thinking, Events

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• Behind her, Jace moved out into the water with a contained grace that barely rippled the surface. Simon behind him, was splashing and cursing.

  Cassandra Clare

  Water, Grace, Splashing

  Cassandra Clare (2011). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instrument Series (4 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels”, p.566, Simon and Schuster

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• So much of history is mystery. We don't know what is lost forever, what will surface again. All objects exist in a moment of time. And that fragment of time is preserved or lost or found in mysterious ways. Mystery is a wonderful part of life.

  Amy Tan

  Forever, Way, Mysterious

  Amy Tan (2001). “The Bonesetter's Daughter”, p.248, Penguin

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• Concentration is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice. Your mindfulness will only be as robust as the capacity of your mind to be calm and stable. Without calmness, the mirror of mindfulness will have an agitated and choppy surface and will not be able to reflect things with any accuracy.

  Jon Kabat-Zinn

  Mirrors, Practice, Mind

  Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005). “Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life”, Hyperion

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• The mole is an animal that digs passages searching for the sun. Sometimes he reaches the surface. When he looks at the sun he goes blind.

  Alejandro Jodorowsky

  Animal, Moles, Looks

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• One person looks around and sees a universe created by a god who watches over its long unfurling, marking the fall of sparrows and listening to the prayers of his finest creation. Another person believes that life, in all its baroque complexity, is a chemical aberration that will briefly decorate the surface of a ball of rock spinning somewhere among a billion galaxies. And the two of them could talk for hours and find no great difference between one another, for neither set of beliefs make us kinder or wiser.

  Mark Haddon

  Prayer, Believe, Fall

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• When a daughter loses a mother, the intervals between grief responses lengthen over time, but her longing never disappears. It always hovers at the edge of her awareness, prepared to surface at any time, in any place, in the least expected ways.

  Hope Edelman

  Daughter, Mother, Grief

  Hope Edelman (2014). “Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss, 20th Anniversary Edition”, p.37, Da Capo Press

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