A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“And then something truly miraculous happened to her in life.
Two hands planted themselves hard and strong on her hips. She turned and saw a girl. A bright and shining, shooting star of a girl.”
Source: When the World Tips Over
“And then sometimes I think the people to feel saddest for are people who once knew what profoundness was, but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder – people who closed the doors that leads us into the secret world – or who had the doors closed for them by time and neglect and decisions made in times of weakness.”
Source: Life After God
“And then somewhere along the shore of a distant Sunset, she tumbled across her soul, and gently Life walked in.”
“And then, suddenly, when the sun is beginning to warm my face, I'm there. In the zone where everything is perfect, and I'm drawing. Fingers, hand and charcoal pencil, even thought, are one and what I am, what I see, or part of it, is skimming across the page, darker here, lighter on the left, a smudging—deliberate—and feathering with spit. While inside, the crimson glow is burning, that bubble I carry within me where I store everything that happens, good or bad, where I can think about it when I'm alone, at night or on the street, waiting for the chance for cash and an easy screw.
As the glow burns, it travels through my limbs, blood and bone, and into my head where something explodes like an electric shock, so I’m shivering, retching even as my hand still moves over paper, tasting vomit in my mouth but refusing to let it go, swallowing down the bitterness. And still I draw, sweat sticky on my forehead and under my arms, but the only part of me touching what I’m doing is my hand with its instrument for line and block and shadow. Nothing can harm me now.”
Source: A Dangerous Man
“And then swooping back in again, even faster, one long incredible fall through the human-shape of me and this time down past where I don't know how to go any smaller and I find myself somehow looping around to out-past-too-big again; so that everything seems to fit inside the smallest place in me and vice versa. And then for a while I'm not sure if I am inside the universe or the universe is inside me. The only thing that seems for sure is that somewhere in all the dancing around of whatever it is that dances, there's a human-shape of me, with either everything inside of it or it is inside of everything, or somehow - don't ask me how - both at the same time.”
Source: Felix Yz
“And then that big Chris laugh. Man, I miss that laugh. That big Chris laugh.”
Source: Based on a True Story: A Memoir
“And then, that feeling comes again when you seem invincible and totally awesome. You simply can't hold it in and you just smile to everyone you come across; infectiously, they have no choice but to smile back. You are more than convinced in your guts that something beautifully indescribable is coming your way. You just drown yourself in the feeling of awesomeness. Faith, probably . . . or the hands of providence?”
“And then that mouth was speaking Russian, rough, sexy, sweet nothings that drove her wild. Forced out all common sense. His mouth trailed her jaw, delivering little nips and hot licks to her neck.
“Bella”—something in Russian—“Bella”—more Russian—“Bella.” As if one language was inadequate to express how she affected him.”
Source: So Over You
“And then that voice from behind her said her name again.
"Celaena."
They had done this.
Her bloody fingers slid down Dorian's face, to his neck. He just stared at her, suddenly still.
"Celaena," a familiar voice said. A warning.
They had did this. They had betrayed her. Betrayed Nehemia. They had taken her away. Her nail brushed Dorian's exposed throat.
"Celaena," the voice said.
Celaena slowly turned.
Chaol stared at her, a hand on his sword. The sword she'd brought to the warehouse- the sword she'd left there. Archer had told her that Chaol had known they were going to do this.
He had known.
She shattered completely, and launched herself at him.”
Source: Crown of Midnight
“And then the bastard smiled at me. He smiled the same smile I’d seen a thousand times. A hundred thousand. It was the smile that said, 'I know best.’ The smile that said, ‘I’m better than you.’ The smile that said, 'I'm safe here and you're not.' The smile that said, 'I have a dick, so I win.’
Rage rolled up in me like the sea and I felt it sweep over my head, threatening to drown me. And then I heard a voice, small but still. A voice I hadn’t heard in forty years. I closed my eyes and listened. ‘It isn’t your anger that will make you good at this job, it is your joy.’ The rage ebbed and in its place, only happiness. Fierce, rampant happiness. It wasn’t the prettiest fight I’d ever been in but it was the most ferocious.”
Source: Killers of a Certain Age
“And then the conditions of safety - or lack of safety - for teachers in public schools, and the disparity between public schools and private schools is shameful.”
“And then the days came when I was alone.”
“And then the dear Lord will take us to the new earth, surrounded by the new Heaven, and the holy New Jerusalem will come down from God out of Heaven. Then we will have an end of pain and sorrow and crying and death. All these, thank God, will be forever done! And then God Himself will wipe away our tears.”
Source: Tears in Heaven
“And then the dreams break into a million tiny pieces. The dream dies. Which leaves you with a choice: you can settle for reality, or you can go off, like a fool, and dream another dream.”
“And then the enchantment leaves, and you realise the enchantment was everything — and that everything was so little, because so much was missing. Everything was missing, because that EVERYTHING was nothing.”
Source: Vesper: The Complete Archive
“And then the finale, its four modest notes. Do, re, fa, mi: half a jumbled scale. Too simple to be called invented. But the thing spills out into the world like one of those African antelopes that fall from the womb, still wet with afterbirth but already running.”
“And then the God said, "Let the most beautiful thing in this world be the sight of a girl with open hair and kaajal in her eyes”
“And then the great music of which the world is made took him over, beyond thought, beyond control until he heard her cry his name and they fell together off the edge of the world.”
Source: Song at Dawn: 1150 in Provence
“And then the industry itself was so cocky about what they were doing that they weren't seeing what was coming on the horizon with Japan and Germany and other places that were building smaller cars.”
“And then the last album, "Get It", was done over a shorter period of time and I started using other musicians, as opposed to playing all the instruments myself like I did on the other two.”
“And then the line was quite but not dead. I almost felt like he was there in my room with me, but in a way it was better, like I was not in my room and he was not in his, but instead we were together in some invisible and tenuous third space that could only be visited on the phone.”
Source: The Fault in Our Stars
“And then the man reminded Max, with a serious but suave and practiced air, that freedom was a debt that could be repaid only by purchasing the freedom of others.”
Source: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (with bonus content): A Novel
“And then the Necromancers pulled out their sub-atomic machine guns.”
“And then the queen wept with all her heart. Not for the cruel and greedy man who had warred and killed and savaged everywhere he could. But for the boy who had somehow turned into that man, the boy whose gentle hand had comforted her childhood hurts, the boy whose frightened voice had cried out to her at the end of his life, as if he wondered why he had gotten lost inside himself, as if he realized that it was too, too late to get out again.”
Source: Maps in a Mirror: The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card
“And then the really awful thing is that at the end of the day after crying and experiencing things, then you look at what you've written and you're like, 'Hmm, there's half a page that's good here.' Then you throw out everything else.”
“And then the rose-border. What intensity in those odorous buds of the Bon Silene, making the very spirit bound as though a message had reached it from heaven. And the verbena bed is compassed with fitful fragrance. Even the pansies, with their dewy eyes, are ready to rival the violets now.... Nor must the purple buds of the calycanthus be forgotten. 'Sweet-scented shrub' indeed; for let me hide but a single one of these in some fold of my dress, and the spices of Araby will float around me till the evening.”
“And then the screaming begins.”
“And then the sea, bright and unreal as a painting. She's never seen so many shades of blue" gleaming turquoise near the breakers; further out, a blue so dark it's almost black. Lucy shivers, thinking of the world beneath the spangled waves.
The coastline curves around, so that she can see the cliffs on the other side of the bay, honeycombed with caves. Devil's Lookout. It's the same view she's seen already, on Jess's postcard, but the photographer hadn't quite captured the eeriness of the cliff face. In person, the caves look deeper and darker; one in particular, closest to the waterline, is large enough that she can almost imagine a demon lurking there, surveying the sea below.
A prickle starts at the base of Lucy's spine. Maybe it's the knowledge of what the water would do to her skin. She imagines the waves lapping at her like tongues, stripping her of flesh until she is nothing but bone, gleaming white.
Or perhaps it's the podcast; the thought of all those missing men, presumed drowned. But with the prickling fear there's a strange pull, too. Lucy struggles to tear her gaze from the bright waves, mesmerized by the way they curl over the shore. A part of her wants to get closer, to feel spindrift on her face, slick rock beneath her palms.”
Source: The Sirens
“And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that's stronger than this-kitchen-candle.”
Source: A Streetcar Named Desire
“And then the sly arch-lover that he was, he said the subtlest thing of all: that the lover was nearer the divine than the beloved; for the god was in the one but not in the other - perhaps the tenderest, most mocking thought that ever was thought, and source of all the guile and secret bliss the lover knows.”
Source: Death in Venice: And Seven Other Stories
“And then the spirit brings hope, hope in the strictest Christian sense, hope which is hoping against hope. For an immediate hope exists in every person; it may be more powerfully alive in one person than in another; but in death every hope of this kind dies and turns into hopelessness. Into this night of hopelessness (it is death that we are describing) comes the life-giving spirit and brings hope, the hope of eternity. It is against hope, for there was no longer any hope for that merely natural hope; this hope is therefore a hope contrary to hope.”
“And then the stars came out. One by one they gleamed, bright and sharp like polished steel, but one burned a fierce amber, killing off all the winds in their paths. The last gust was barely stronger than a dying breath, a whisper that disappeared behind the trees. Riyan, he recalled suddenly. The dragon of the winds after which the amber star was named. Dragons had been dead for centuries, but the Annals insisted that when they left this world, their spirits became stars, changing in succession to protect their people.”
Source: Burn Red Skies
“And then the turbines generate electricity that goes into the whole town." "You mean they aren't powered by giant hamsters on wheels? I was misinformed.”
“And then the witness, if you go down into the witness, that has the spiritual being. Down there, in your soul, you'll get far more love than you ever got out there.”
“And then the work bears a strong sense of leave-taking for me personally. It ends the work I began in the 1960s (paintings from black-and-white photographs), with a compressed summation that precludes any possible continuation. And so it is a leave-taking from thoughts and feelings of my own on a very basic level. Not that this is a deliberate act, of course; it is a quasi-automatic sequence of disintegration and reformation which I can perceive, as always, only in retrospect.”
Source: Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007
“And then the world exploded.”
Source: Carrie
“And then . . . the world seemed to fold in on itself. Everything fell away and scattered like ashes in a strong wind.”
Source: Dreck
“And then the wren gan scippen and to daunce.”
“And then their voices stopped and their souls stood still and they ceased being who they had been. Because who they were had always been determined by him.”
“And then there are days of being lost in the woods, not knowing the fate, but just being a wanderer - That's life”
“And then there are difficulties. Computers are famous for difficulties. A difficulty is just a blockage from progress. You have to try a lot of things. When you finally find what works, it doesn't tell you a thing. It won't be the same tomorrow. Getting the computer to work is so often dealing with difficulties.”
“And then there are encouragements to use heterosexual pornography or heterosexual images to encourage heterosexual attraction. I find it a golden idol, honestly, where we have been hypocritical to ask people to resolve this issue in a way that we haven't encouraged other people with other struggles to resolve. I'm looking at offering biblical holiness, not an unrealistic expectation for people that will leave them disappointed.”
“And then there are my friends, and they have their own lives. While they like to talk everything through, to analyze and hypothesize, what I really need, what I'm really looking for, is not something I can articulate. It's nonverbal: I need love. I need the thing that happens when your brain shuts off and your heart turns on. And I know it's around me somewhere, but I just can't feel it.”
Source: Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
“And then there are one's friends, good fellows, good fellows, great to be with them and talk, to have lunch together, dinner together, but all of it, I don't know, so sordid and pathetic and trivial, because even on the street we remain in the fabric warehouse, even overseas we're still seated before the Cashbook, and even in infinity we still have our boss.
Everyone has an office manager with a joke that's out of place, and everyone has a soul that falls outside the normal universe.”
Source: The Book of Disquiet
“And then there are painters who never do anything that is no good, who cannot do anything bad, just as there are ordinary people who can do nothing but good.”
Source: The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh
“And then there are roads that can't be walked back.”
“and then there are some who believe that old relationships can be revived and made new again. but please if you feel that way don't phone don't write don't arrive”
Source: Come On In!: New Poems
“And then there are the cravings.. Oh, la! A woman may crave to be near water, or be belly down, her face in the earth, smelling the wild smell. She might have to drive into the wind. She may have to plant something, pull things out of the ground or put them into the ground. She may have to knead and bake, rapt in dough up to her elbows.
She may have to trek into the hills, leaping from rock to rock trying out her voice against the mountain. She may need hours of starry nights where the stars are like face powder spilt on a black marble floor. She may feel she will die if she doesn’t dance naked in a thunderstorm, sit in perfect silence, return home ink-stained, paint-stained, tear-stained, moon-stained.”
Source: Women Who Run With the Wolves
“And then there are the dreams that feel as authentic as reality itself, that seem to exist just as your own life does. Where the emotions you experience there carry over to when you're awake. They are so real, so genuine, that you begin to question your own sanity. And you know that when the day comes that you finally stop dreaming them, you will never stop remembering.”
Source: The Dreamer
“And then there are the pure in heart, the ones for whom nothing is good enough, not even themselves. ("Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.") These are the perfectionists. They are a pain to everyone, themselves most of all. In religion they will certainly find errors in your doctrine, your practice, and probably your heart and your attitude. They may be even harder on themselves. They endlessly pick over their own motivations. They wanted Jesus to wash his hands even though they were not dirty and called him a glutton and a winebibber.
Their food is never cooked right; their clothes and hair are always unsatisfactory; they can tell you what is wrong with everything. How miserable they are! And yet the kingdom is even open to them, and there at last they will find something that satisfies their pure heart. They will see God. And when they do they will find what they have been looking for, someone who is truly good enough.”
Source: The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God