A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“As she left my room I knew I should shut up. But you know when you should shut up because you really should just shut up...but you keep on and on anyway? Well, I had that.”
“As she left the room, Po went to Katsa, pulled her up, sat himself in her chair, and drew her into his lap. Shushing her, he rocked her, the two of them holding on to each other as if it were the only thing keeping the world from bursting apart.”
Source: Bitterblue
“As she lifted it, it caught the light and sent it out in a fan of intense colour.
‘Take this,’ Yollana said, and if there was a request in the two words, she hid it well. ‘Take this, and wear it. Travel this village, these lands. Speak to the people who make this your home. Visit your graves, your fields, your hills; find the shade in your forest, the cooling waters in your brook and small river.’ She let it fall; Ashaf gasped until she saw the glittering chain that stopped it from reaching the ground. A necklace or a pendant of some sort.
She reached out an open palm, and Yollana carefully dropped the stone-for it was a stone, a clear one, like a diamond that would beggar even a Tyr-into her hand. At once, it flared with a deep, blue light; the light ran the length of her arm, shrouding it.
Magic.
‘What-what does it do?’ Her voice was, momentarily, a girl’s voice-the girl that she had thought long gone. Dreamer. Seeker of wonder.
‘It is the Lady’s magic,’ Yollana replied, ‘not the Lord’s. It will not protect you; it will not defend you. Where a blade is raised or a spell is thrown, you will find no solace in it.’
Ashaf smiled wryly. ‘I did not ask you what it wasn’t. I asked you what it is.’
‘It is a keeper’ Yollan said. ‘Of memory. Of affection. Of place. Wear it, as I have told you wear it, and it will take some of what you feel and hold it within depths that you cannot even imagine. Wear it, and you will feel exactly the peace or the joy or the quiet-yes, or the sorrow-that you felt when you donned it.’
‘Why?’
‘It is a piece of home,’ Yollana replied gravely. ‘Many of the Voyani women wear them, because the heart-our hearts-so seldom find a home, and when they do, we cannot remain there.”
Source: The Broken Crown
“As she lifted the glittering strand of diamonds from the box, a small slip of paper fell out. She caught it as it wafted toward the floor. Four words in ancient script, an arrogantly slanted scrawl. Accept these, accept me. Well, she thought, blinking, that was certainly direct and to the point. -Adam's note to Gabrielle”
Source: The Highlander Series 7-Book Bundle
“As she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole place around her became alive with the strange creatures of her little sister’s dream.
The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried by—the frightened Mouse splashed his way through the neighbouring pool—she could hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends shared their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice of the Queen ordering off her unfortunate guests to execution—once more the pig-baby was sneezing on the Duchess’s knee, while plates and dishes crashed around it—once more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard’s slate-pencil, and the choking of the suppressed guinea-pigs, filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the miserable Mock Turtle.
So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality—the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds—the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy—and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard—while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s heavy sobs.”
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
“As she looked in the full-length mirror in her dressing room, she added a few ropes of pearls, pinned a white silk camellia, and draped the Chantilly lace shawl. In that moment, Dana thought of fashion's most enduring icon who created this elegant and alluring style, and the happy personal life that eluded her. Mademoiselle Chanel died in 1971 at the age of eighty-eight while working on her spring collection, but her passion for work did not fill the void of marriage and children. Her success was costly, but clearly the choice of an uncompromising woman determined to achieve greatness on her own. Chanel once said, "I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird." Quote from "A very Good Life.”
Source: A Very Good Life
“As she looked in the full-length mirror in her dressing room, she added a few ropes of pearls, pinned a white silk camellia, and draped the Chantilly lace shawl. In that moment, Dana thought of fashion's most enduring icon who created this elegant and alluring style, and the happy personal life that eluded her. Mademoiselle Chanel died in 1971 at the age of eighty-eight while working on her spring collection, but her passion for work did not fill the void of marriage and children. Her success was costly, but clearly the choice of an uncompromising woman determined to achieve greatness on her own. She once said, "I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird.”
“As she looked into Gloria’s eyes, she saw only love: concerned, determined love. Fierce love. Ferocious love. The kind of generous, supportive love Peaches had specifically come there that evening hoping to find.”
Source: Moments to Spare
“As she looked me up and down, I felt like a daughter returning from summer camp to a mother who had worried unnecessarily. Except instead of summer camp it had been my entire adolescence, emancipation, homelessness, and single parenthood, and I couldn't rightly say that Elizabeth's worry had been unwarranted”
Source: The Language of Flowers
“As she looks through the window;
while seeing him give her his world,
tears rolled down her cheeks as she remembers the world she once had.”
“As she looks through the window;
while seeing him give her his world,
tears rolled down her cheeks
in remembrance of the world she once had.”
“As she mader the long journey home to Champion Hill she felt what she had tried and failed to feel the day before: she looked at the city and was sick with love for it, sick with yearning to remain a part of it, to remain alive and young and unconfined and bursting with sensation. Her tired muscles began to ache, but even the ache was dear to her, even the blisters on her heels. She'd be a thing of aches and blisters for the rest of her days, she thought; she'd ask for nothing, trouble no one; if only they'd let her keep her freedom, if only they'd let her keep her life.”
Source: The Paying Guests
“As she passed through Maine, Annie would interpret a certain expression on someone's face as possibly a family trait. She saw the Stuart in a stranger's clear blue eyes, the Libby in someone's adventurous spirit. Everyone she encountered might be a distant cousin. She felt that her people were everywhere, and because of that she couldn't fully be a stranger.”
Source: The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America
“As she piped rosettes, docked a sheet of dough, or doused a tart with sanding sugar, another world occurred on the doorstep. Now Avis answers the door herself and leads surprised delivery people into the front entrance, across the living room, and through the heavy swinging door to her kitchen. She almost enjoys the contact with the outside world. On Monday, there is a Colombian man who delivers free-range eggs and unpasteurized milk that glows like satin. Tuesdays, a woman from Lima bring special concoctions of candied lilacs and fruit peels and 'gelees,' and later a young boy comes with a box filled with dried starfruit and bananas and fresh tea, mint and sage from his father's botanical garden in the Redlands. She asks and forgets everyone's names, but next week, she thinks, she'll ask again. Some deliveries- like those from her son's market- come every week, others- like the fig balsamic vinegar- were special-ordered to accompany a single chocolate strawberry ice cream cake.”
Source: Birds of Paradise
“As she placed the stack near the other clothing, she glanced over her shoulder to see Brynn fiddling with the end of her braid.
"Rhiannon, I don't mean to pry, but would you like some help with your hair?"
Rhiannon sent her a wry, half smile. "It's that noticeable, is it?"
"Well," Brynn paused, dipping her chin as she shoved her hands in her pockets, "not really... mostly."
"I'm hopeless, you can say it," Rhiannon laughed. "Yes, please, I would appreciate any help you can give. My handmaidens always took care of such things and I never had any sense to learn to do it myself.”
Source: The Hunter: Tales of Pern Coen
“As she processed all of these sensations, she saw Gabe watching her from the kitchen, an eager puppy-dog look on his face. She couldn't help but beam her enjoyment back at him.
For the first time in a very long time, she felt completely happy. It was as if this night, which had seemed so awful at first, was designed in such a way that the lowest lows could build to the highest highs.”
Source: Food Person
“As she pulled the covers over her cold nose, Bridget wondered sleepily why she hadn't simply agreed to help the Duke of Kyle in whatever way she could. He was obviously working for good and Montgomery... well, he worked only for himself, didn't he? He was on the side of evil. Why hadn't she betrayed him when she was given the opportunity? She thought about the way he'd touched her- the way it had made her feel like a woman. Had she sold her own honor for a handful of kisses, a bite, and a lick?
Or was it because of his gaze when he'd told her to fuck the rules, when he'd turned aside from threatening Kyle at her touch, when he'd called her a ridiculous, exotic name?
When he'd looked at her and seen her as a person, not just a servant?”
Source: Duke of Sin
“As she put it, she knew of nothing so ravishing as having a child whom she could whip whenever she was in a bad mood.
("The Queen Fantasque")”
Source: Spells of Enchantment: The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture
“As she ran, a memory uncurled in her mind and spread out before her and it felt like she was running into the memory.”
Source: Taken
“As she ran, Violet couldn't help but remember how she and her siblings had called Uncle Monty's name, early one morning, just before discovering the tragedy that had befallen him. "Aunt Josephine!" she called. "Aunt Josephine!" She couldn't help but remember all the times she had woken up in the middle of the night, calling out the names of her parents as she dreamed, as she so often did, of the terrible fire that had claimed their lives. "Aunt Josephine!" she said, reaching the library door. Violet was afraid that she was calling out Aunt Josephine's name when her aunt could no longer hear it.”
Source: The Wide Window
“As she reached the entrance hall, she saw Lady St. Vincent coming in from the back terrace, her cheeks wind-brightened, the hem of her gown littered with bits of leaves and grass. She looked like an untidy angel, with her lovely calm face and rippling red hair, and the playful spray of light gold freckles across her nose.”
Source: Mine Till Midnight
“As she reached the stairs, she made a quick detour and stepped outside.
A crescent moon hung in the midnight blue sky along with trillions of twinkling stars. Out here there were no streetlights to wash out the view. She loved being able to see the stars.
Tonight, the mountains were etched deep purple against the night sky. The white snowcapped tips gleamed silver. Nearer, silhouetted pine trees swayed in the breeze as if in a slow dance.
“You are such a romantic,” Trask had once told her. “Are you sure you want to open a bar? You should be writing poetry.”
She’d laughed. “How do you know I don’t?”
Source: Renegade's Pride
“As she read, she felt she was giving this story a new life of its own. It was no longer a reflection of her childhood and whatever happened within the Storm family. It was just a story, to be shared and enjoyed.”
Source: The Library of Lost and Found
“As she read the ten commandments for the first time, a Chinese woman said, "I don't see how anyone can very well get on without them."”
“As she read, at peace with the world and happy as only a little girl could be with a fine book and a little bowl of candy, and all alone in the house, the leaf shadows shifted and the afternoon passed.”
Source: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
“As she realized that at the core of it, her life was as empty as the bottle in her hand, she tried to speculate what her life would have been like, had she married someone who wouldn’t have thought of crossing the Rubicon when it came to it. But, as if not to hurt her sensibilities at that point of no return, her faculties failed her. In time, her body too began losing its vitality to hold her restless soul any longer.”
Source: Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life
“As she realized what might have been, she grew to be thankful for what was.”
Source: North and South
“As she relaxed, she started to notice something happening to the ingredients beneath her fingers. As she touched them, poking and prodding, kneading and caressing, the sensations she used to feel when she cooked started to return. She could feel the icy gurgle of the salt water against weather-barren black rock as she tossed a handful of local mussels into a pot of butter and white wine. She chopped a foraged mushroom and inhaled the damp, loamy soil of the forest spicy with ferns and dripping with cool humidity. She grinned, buoyed by a wave of relief. At least for tonight, her Technicolor senses were in full swing. With a satisfied sigh of contentment, she spooned Star's honey over local goat cheese on rounds of sunflower seed crackers, hearing all around her the nectar-drunk buzzing of the bees. It felt like pure joy to handle the ingredients.”
Source: Recipe for a Charmed Life
“As she removed the key, he stood close enough that she felt his breath on her ear. "Do you have something of value in there, or are you making certain I know you have a lock?”
Source: The Source of Magic
“As she rounded a corner one of her favourite songs came on the radio, and sunlight filtered through the trees the way it does with lace curtains, reminding her of her grandmother, and tears began to slide down her cheeks. Not for her grandmother, who was then still very much among the living, but because she felt an enveloping happiness to be alive, a joy made stronger by the certainty that someday it would all come to an end. It overwhelmed her, made her pull the car to the side of the road. Afterwards she felt a little foolish, and never spoke to anyone about it. Now, however, she knows she wasn’t being foolish. She realizes that for no particular reason she stumbled into the core of what it is to be human. It’s a rare gift to understand that your life is wondrous, and that it won’t last forever.”
Source: The Cellist of Sarajevo
“As she sang, she felt alive.”
Source: The Midnight Library
“As she sat implanted on that hard, unyielding flesh and felt its altering pressures inside with each back-and-forth sway, the tension began again. She started to move with him, her breath hastening with renewed effort. He braced one hand on the ground and slid the other low on her backside, pulling her into each thrust. She jerked as she felt one of his fingers accidentally slip into the crevice between the halves of her bottom. A guttural sound escaped his lips as her body clenched tightly around his shaft. The finger teased deeper, and she responded with a little squeal of protest, clamping down hard on him again. Keir groaned in pleasure and kept thrusting, while she yelped and writhed to avoid that impudently delving, stroking finger, her muscles squeezing over and over until she stiffened with a climax that stole her breath away. Somewhere in the white-hot shudders, she was aware of Keir finding his own release, his entire body turning to iron beneath hers.”
Source: Devil in Disguise
“As she sat there, her feeling of loneliness increased. And this was strange, because she had always been solitary, and did not usually feel lonely when alone. But she watched Gina with Adam and-
-and she realized that she wasn't happy being solitary anymore.
But the person she was happiest with wasn't a person.
It was Periapt.
Being with him was like being with the perfect companion. He was clever. He was kind, at least to her- though he had been scathing with the fox, and once or twice with Cleo, whom he regarded as being rather too full of herself. They found the same kinds of things funny, they enjoyed the same sorts of books, and it was getting so that they could finish each other's sentences. She was never happier than when she was curled up with him, having a lively discussion over some obscure point in a book.
In fact, simply being with him made her happy- happy in a way that no human male had ever made her feel. Maybe it was simply that he didn't take long, doubtful glances at her oculars, or act polite while all the time he was actually bored.
That realization made her feel very odd indeed. And she wasn't entirely sure what to make of it.”
Source: One Good Knight
“As she silently chewed the grains of rice, it occurred to her, as it had before, that there was something shameful about eating. Gripped by this familiar shame, she thought of the dead, for whom the absence of life meant they would never be hungry again. But life still lingered on for her, with hunger still a yoke around her neck. It was that which had tormented her for the past five years—that she could still feel hunger, still salivate at the sight of food.”
Source: Human Acts
“As she slid into her fifties, with grace I might add, she learned the art of hatred, pulling on the pain from a broken heart. She kept this pain alive, growing on the outskirts of her soul, like a copse of trees that constantly needed pruning.”
Source: Love's Shadow: Nine Crooked Paths
“As she spoke she changed in some provocative way, seemed suddenly drenched in eroticism as a diver rising out of a pool gleams like chrome with a sheet of unbroken water for a fractional moment.”
Source: The Shipping News
“As she spread mayonnaise on the slices of bread and slid them into the sizzling rosemary butter, something tight eased up a little in Feyi's chest. She was alone, just with herself, remembering the creeping peace of putting something together on a flame, the sounds of bread turning gold, the rhythm of grating Gruyere cheese and layering it, then watching it soften and melt.”
Source: You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
“As she stared at the magazine cover - an image of a black hole - she realized that's what she was. A black hole. A dying star, collapsing in on itself”
Source: The Midnight Library
“As she stared at them, Waringa noted that their skins were indeed red, like that of pigs or like the skin of a black person who has been scalded with boiling water or who has burned himself with acid creams. Even the hair in their arms and necks stood out stiff and straight like the bristle of an aging hog.”
Source: Devil on the Cross
“As she stared down at Stef's coffin, all she could picture was the scene at the Marquette cemetery, Stef's head in Becca's lap, her skin turning a sickly shade of grayish brown, her eyes open but unseeing, as her life slowly drained away.”
Source: #Murderfunding
“As she stared down at the pages, she thought now of the man she had so nearly married.”
Source: The Midnight Library
“As she stares into the cool prisms of blues and whites, and the clear parts which fracture the light, she notices something deeper. It is a light from within the ice. It's beautiful; so she stays.”
Source: Denali Skies
“As she stepped out of the elevator, I looked at her until the doors closed around me. Heaven Scent lingered in the elevator car, and I rode the elevator up and down until the magical scent had dissipated into the air, as would my dreams and desires.”
Source: A Walk in the Twilight: A Librarian searching for questions
“As she stepped through the front door onto the verandah, a warm breeze brushed her face and she felt a heavy wave of deep familiarity: the smell of eucalyptus and sunbaked dirt, the light so bright it put creases around her eyes just to look at it. The slender blue gums on the ridge, ancient and watchful. This was the landscape of her childhood and she would never be able to escape its influence.
But just as Daniel Miller had brought her to Halcyon, the books that she'd read as a child, lying beneath the ferns at Darling House, had taken her to lands where trees with names like oak and chestnut and elm grew in great, ancient forests, and the soil was moist and the sun was gentle, where there were magical words like "hedgerow" and "conker," and snow kissed the glass of windows in winter, and children went sledding at Christmas and ate "pudding" and "blancmange." And so, she had come to know another landscape, not just intellectually, but viscerally: a landscape of the imagination as real to her as the geographical landscape in which she moved. When she first arrived in England as a twenty-year-old graduate, she had stepped off the plane and known it already.
Standing here now, looking across the valley toward the facing hill, Jess could imagine how homesick Isabel must have felt at times. She herself had been thinking about "home" a lot. Home, she'd realized, wasn't a place or a time or a person, though it could be any and all of those things: home was a feeling, a sense of being complete. The opposite of "home" wasn't "away", it was "lonely." When someone said, "I want to go home," what they really meant was that they didn't want to feel lonely anymore.”
Source: Homecoming
“As she stood before Aragorn she paused suddenly and looked upon him, and her eyes were shining. And he looked down upon her fair face and smiled; but as he took the cup, his hand met hers, and he knew that she trembled at the touch.”
Source: The Lord of the Rings: One Volume
“As she stood down below him on the street,it seemed impossible that she'd connected with him as she had,but then,the phone was virtual relating,one step up from being online.Both people were in their own environments,invisible to each other,only their voices mixing.It was false intimacy.”
Source: Lover Avenged: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood
“As she stood in the darkened room and watched my sister and father, I knew one of things that heaven meant. I had a choice, and it was not to divide my family in my heart.”
Source: The Lovely Bones: Picador Classic
“As she stooped over him, her tears fell upon his forehead.
The boy stirred, and smiled in his sleep, as though these marks of pity and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection he had never known; as a strain of gentle music, or the rippling of water in a silent place, or the odour of a flower, or even the mention of a familiar word, will sometimes call up sudden dim remembrances of scenes that never were, in this life; which vanish like a breath; and which some brief memory of a happier existence, long gone by, would seem to have awakened, for no voluntary exertion of the mind can ever recall them.”
Source: Oliver Twist
“As she talked she was working at a patchwork counterpane. The diamond-shaped pieces of silk melted one into the other, red, blue, purple, green, yellow, all one shimmering color. Hours and hours she had spent on it and it was nearly finished. Would I be lonely? she asked and I said 'No', looking at the colors. Hours and hours and hours I thought.”
Source: Wide Sargasso Sea
“As she took a deep breath, all she smelled was him, the scent going in her nose and blooming all over her body.
Bastard, she thought. Irresistible bastard”
Source: Lover Revealed