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“And talking about dark! You think dark is just one color, but it ain't. There're five or six kinds of black. Some silky, some woolly. Some just empty. Some like fingers. And it don't stay still, it moves and changes from one kind of black to another. Saying something is pitch black is like saying something is green. What kind of green? Green like my bottles? Green like a grasshopper? Green like a cucumber, lettuce, or green like the sky is just before it breaks loose to storm? Well, night black is the same way. May as well be a rainbow.”

ThinkingWayWellsKindMayStillsMovingNightBlackDarkTalkingBreakFiveSkyColorSixEmptyGreenFingersStormJust OneBottlesRainbowLettuceCucumbersGrasshoppersPitch Black
Author:Toni Morrison
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“Nostalgia is a necessary thing, I believe, and a way for all of us to find peace in that which we have accomplished, or even failed to accomplish. At the same time, if nostalgia precipitates actions to return to that fabled, rosy-painted time, particularly in one who believes his life to be a failure, then it is an empty thing, doomed to produce nothing but frustration and an even greater sense of failure.”

IfsWayBelieveActionI BelievePeaceGreaterProduceReturnEmptyAccomplishNostalgiaAccomplishedFrustrationDoomedFinding PeaceRosyNecessary Things
Book:Streams of Silver: The Legend of Drizzt
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“Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish - a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow - to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested... Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.”

WayMindHeartRealHateFallFoundFunHeavenImaginationSleepStreetsWindProductsDrinkPureLateEmptyFalling In LoveBlowHaving FunLazyGood TimesHuntersArrestedWay To LiveWhiskyGonzoDementedHillbillySleep LateEmpty StreetsDriving FastLet The Good Times Roll
Author:Hunter S. Thompson
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“I suffered no pain, my hunger had taken the edge off; instead I felt pleasantly empty, untouched by everything around me and happy to be unseen by all. I put my legs up on the bench and leaned back, the best way to feel the true well-being of seclusion. There wasn't a cloud in my mind, nor did I feel any discomfort, and I hadn't a single unfulfilled desire or craving as far as my thought could reach. I lay with open eyes in a state of utter absence from myself and felt deliciously out of it.”

WayFeelsMindWellsStatesEyePainDesireFeltTakenEmptyLaysHungerCloudsEdgesLegsAbsenceBest WayWell BeingUnseenMy ThoughtsCravingDiscomfortBenchesNo PainSeclusionOpen EyesUnfulfilled Desires
Book:Hunger
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“This was something she would keep hidden within herself, maybe in place of the knot of pain and anger she had been carrying under her breastbone...a security blanket, an ace up her sleeve. She might never use it, but she would always feel its presence like a swelling secret stone, and that way when she let go of the rage, she would not feel nearly as empty.”

WayFeelsUseMightPainSecretSecurityLetting GoHeartbreakStonesEmptyRageBlanketSleevesKnotsAcesSwelling
Author:Jodi Picoult
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“Cool is spent. Cool is empty. Cool is ex post facto. When advertisers and pundits hoard a word, you know it's time to retire from it. To move on. I want to suggest, therefore, that we begin to avoid cool now. Cool is a trick to get you to buy garments made by sweatshop laborers in Third World countries. Cool is the Triumph of the Will. Cool enables you to step over bodies. Cool enables you to look the other way. Cool makes you functional, eager for routine distraction, passive, doped, stupid.”

KnowsWorldWayWantLooksMadeCountryBodyMovingStepsStupidEmptyThirdsTricksPostsTriumphRoutineDistractionRetiringPassiveExesGarmentsThird WorldLaborersAdvertisersPunditsThird World CountriesSweatshops
Author:Rick Moody
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“She looked out then, through the crowd, and saw Simon with the Lightwoods, looking at her across the empty space that separated them. It was the same way that Jace had looked at her at the manor. It was the one thread that bound these two boys that she loved so much, she thought, their one commonality: They both believed in her even when she didn't believe in herself.”

WayBelieveTwoSpaceBoysSawsEmptyBoundsCrowdsThreadJaceEmpty SpaceCommonality
Book:Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls
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“As I followed Margo's directions through the maze of one-way streets, we saw a few people sleeping on the sidewalk or sitting on benches, but nobody was moving. Margo rolled down the window, and I felt the thick air blow across my face, warmer than night ought to be. I glanced over and saw strands of her hair blowing all around her face. Even though I could see her there, I felt entirely alone among these big and empty buildings, like I'd survived the apocalypse and the world had been given to me, this whole and amazing and endless world, mine for the exploring.”

PeopleWorldWayWholeBigsFacesMovingNightGivenFeltSleepSawsAirStreetsBuildingMinesHairOughtSittingWindowEmptyBlowEndlessOne WayThickExploringSurvivedApocalypseBenchesStrandsSidewalkMazesSitting On The BenchHair Blowing
Book:Paper Towns
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“What's prayer? It's shooting shafts into the dark. What mark they strike, if any, who's to say? It's reaching for a hand you cannot touch. The silence is so fathomless that prayers like plummets vanish into the sea. You beg. You whimper. You load God down with empty praise. You tell him sins that he already knows full well. You seek to change his changeless will. Yet Godric prays the way he breathes, for else his heart would wither in his breast. Prayer is the wind that fills his sail. Else drift with witless tides. And sometimes, by God's grace, a prayer is heard.”

IfsKnowsWayWellsHeartSometimesHandsDarkPrayerSinSilenceGraceHeardSeaWindPrayingEmptyMarkPraiseBreatheStrikesShootingReachingBreastsTidesLoadSailSilence IsGod's Grace
Author:Frederick Buechner
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“I haven't come to you only to take , I haven't come to you empty handed : I bring you poetry as great as yours but in anther tongue , I bring you black eyes and golden skin and curly hair , I bring you Islam and Luxor and Alexandria and Lutes and tambourines and date-palms and silk rugs and sunshine and incense and voluptuous ways”

WayEyeBlackHavensHairEmptySkinsIslamTongueGoldenSunshinePalmsSilkIncenseVoluptuousBlack EyesAlexandriaCurly Hair
Book:In the Eye of the Sun
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“We would sit in the living room, drink a case of Busch beer, and throw the empty cans into the kitchen for no reason whatsoever, beyond the fact that it was the most overtly irresponsible way for any two people to live.”

PeopleWayTwoReasonFactsRoomsCasesDrinkEmptyBeerKitchenNo ReasonIrresponsibleLiving Room
Book:What Happens When People Stop Being Polite: An Essay from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
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“I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves - this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts - possessions, outward success, luxury - have always seemed to me contemptible.”

MenWorldWayMindHumansHas BeensArtEndsFacesGivenEffortKindnessFieldsObjectsIdealsEmptyBasesPossessionCriticalObjectivesLuxuryMy WayEaseOccupationEndeavorUnattainableKinship
Author:Albert Einstein
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“Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who condescended to come into this world of misery, struggle, and pain to touch men's hearts for good, to teach the way of eternal life, and to give Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. How different, how empty our lives would be without Him. How infinite is our opportunity for exaltation made possible through His redeeming love.”

MenWorldWayGivingHeartMadeDifferentWould BePainOpportunityJesusChristSinTeachStruggleOur LivesSacrificeMankindThis WorldSonEternalJesus ChristEmptyInfiniteMiseryEternal LifeExaltationRedeemingRedeeming Love
Author:Gordon B. Hinckley
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“In Washington and Moscow they are saying, 'Man has finally come of age; he doesn't need paternalistic help.' Which is another way of saying, 'We have abolished that help, and in its place we will rule,' offering no help at all: taking but not giving, ruling but not obeying, telling but not listening, taking life and not giving it. The slayers govern now, without interference; the dreams of mankind have become empty.”

MenWayNeedsGivingHelpingDreamAgeMankindListeningEmptyOfferingRulingAnother WayInterferenceMoscowObeyingSlayer
Author:Philip K. Dick
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“It is unearned love--the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It's the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.”

ThinkingWayIdeasHelpingLightLeftGraceEmptyGratefulCharmDesperateIsolatedCharmingEmbarrassedElectricityBreezeJuiceBright IdeasIsolated Places
Author:Anne Lamott
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“Rebecca was an academic star. Her new book was on the phenomenon of word casings, a term she'd invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words--"friend" and "real" and "story" and "change"--words that had been shucked of their meanings and reduced to husks. Some, like "identity" and "search" and "cloud," had clearly been drained of life by their Web usage. With others, the reasons were more complex; how had "American" become an ironic term? How had "democracy" come to be used in an arch, mocking way?”

WayBookRealReasonStoriesUsedStarsTermDemocracyIdentityEmptyMarkComplexesCloudsPhenomenonIronicAcademicQuotationsUsageNew BooksArchesDrainedRebeccaEmpty WordsQuotation Marks
Book:A Visit From the Goon Squad
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“I watched her die many times. In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty. Only the sun was there to keep us company. We shut him out. And why not? Very soon she was as eager for what's called loving as I was - more lost and drowned afterwards.”

WayLongDiesHouseLostCompanySunShadowEmptyMy WayWhy NotAfternoonSunlightMoonlightCandlelight
Book:Wide Sargasso Sea
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“From this distance, in the dimness, the model looked surreal, made up of parts filled with buildings, bordered by long stretches of empty space. It reminded me of the way cities and towns look when you are flying at night. You can't make out much. But the places where people have come together, and stayed, are collections of tiny lights, breaking up the darkness.”

PeopleWayLooksLongMadeLightTogetherNightSpaceCitiesDarknessBuildingModelsEmptyTownsFilledDistanceTinyFlyingCollectionsSurrealEmpty SpaceMake OutCities And Towns
Book:What Happened to Goodbye
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“Poseidon grinned. "You're doing well with those new cabins, by the way. I suppose this means I can claim all those other sons and daughters of mine and send you some siblings next summer." "Ha-ha." Poseidon reeled in his empty line. I shifted my feet. "Um, you were kidding, right?" Poseidon gave me one of his inside-joke winks, and I still didn't know whether he was serious or not.”

KnowsWayWellsMeanStillsI CanNextLinesFeetMinesSeriousSonSummerJokesDaughterEmptyClaimsSiblingCabinsSon And DaughterPoseidonInside Jokes
Author:Rick Riordan
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“I've got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don't want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before 'thin'. And frankly, I'd rather they didn't give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons. Let them never be Stupid Girls.”

WorldWayWantGivingKindTwoSelfGirlNextInterestingWorryStupidThousandDaughterStandingEmptyOriginalsIndependentKneesObsessedSkinnyMy GirlIdealisticOpinionatedHermioneParkinsonSelf ObsessedTwo DaughtersPansiesChihuahuaFlatulenceStupid Girl
Author:J. K. Rowling
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“There's a kind of luck that's not much more than being in the right place at the right time, a kind of inspiration that's not much more than doing the right thing in the right way, and both only really happen to you when you empty your heart of ambition, purpose, and plan; when you give yourself, completely, to the golden, fate-filled moment.”

WayGivingHeartKindMomentsInspirationHappensPurposeFatePlansAmbitionEmptyLuckFilledGoldenRight ThingRight WayRight TimeShantaramRight PlaceDoing The Right Thing
Book:Shantaram: A Novel
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“They had each other and there was a love between them that would withstand anything. Alina and I had always intuited, with no small wry pique, that, although our parents adored us and would do anything for us, they loved each other more. As far as I was concerned, that was the way it should be. Kids grow up, move on and find a love of their own. The empty nest shouldn't leave parents grieving. It should leave them ready and excited to get on with living their own adventure, which would, of course, include many visits to children and grandchildren.”

WayShouldChildrenKidsMovingCoursesGrowsParentGrowing UpAdventureReadyConcernedEmptyExcitedGrievingGrandchildrenNestsChildren And GrandchildrenWryPiqueEmpty Nest
Book:Dreamfever: Fever Series
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“I wished there was some kind of switch on my brain. That I could turn it off in the same way that I could turn off the television. Just click it off and immediately empty my mind of all these images and worrying thoughts. And simply leave a blank screen. Or if I could just remove my head and put it on the bedside table and forget about it until morning. And then attach it again when I needed it.”

IfsWayMindKindTurnsForgetBrainMorningWorryTelevisionNeededEmptyTablesScreensIf I CouldRemoveBlankClicksTurn Off
Author:Marian Keyes
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“And then I wonder, does my brother think of me this way? We entered this world together, one after the other, beats in a pulse. But I will be first to leave it. That's what I've been promised. When we were children, did he dare to imagine an empty space beside him where I then stood giggling, blowing soap bubbles through my fingers? When I die, will he be sorry that he loved me? Sorry that we were twins? Maybe he already is.”

ThinkingWorldWayFirstsChildrenDoeTogetherDiesSpaceWonderImagineThis WorldBrotherBeatsEmptyFingersSorryDareMy BrotherBubblesTwinsSoapPulseThink Of MeEmpty SpaceSoap Bubbles
Book:Fever
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“I find that the only way to get through life is to picture myself in an entirely disconnected reality. I often imagine how people would react to my death. Mr Dunthorne's quavering voice as he makes the announcement. The shocked faces of my classmates. A playground bedecked with flowers. The empty stillness of a school corridor. Local news analysis. . . . The steady stoicism of my parents. . . . Candlelit vigils. . . . And finally, my glorious resurrection.”

PeopleWayRealitySchoolFacesLife IsParentVoiceImagineFlowerNewsEmptyLocalsAnalysisGloriousSteadyStillnessResurrectionShockedStoicismPlaygroundsDisconnectedCorridorsAnnouncementsClassmatesLocal News
Author:Joe Dunthorne
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“Now, almost one hundred years later, it is difficult to fully appreciate how much our picture of the universe has changed in the span of a single human lifetime. As far as the scientific community in 1917 was concerned, the universe was static and eternal, and consisted of a one single galaxy, our Milky Way, surrounded by vast, infinite, dark, and empty space. This is, after all, what you would guess by looking up at the night sky with your eyes, or with a small telescope, and at the time there was little reason to suspect otherwise.”

WayYearsHumansLittlesReasonEyeNightUniverseDifficultCommunityDarkSpaceSkyChangedEternalHundredConcernedAppreciateEmptyInfiniteLifetimeSuspectsGalaxyStaticNight SkyTelescopesEmpty SpaceMilky Way
Author:Lawrence M. Krauss
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“He looked down at his empty glass. "One of the other ways in which I am different from my father," he said. "I am not interested in marrying where I do not love." I spoke in a jesting voice. "And of all the women in the eight provinces, you have not been able to find one you could love?" Now he looked at me again, and his face was completely serious. "That's the problem," he said. "There is one.”

WaySaidDifferentProblemAbleFacesFatherVoiceSeriousEmptyGlassesEightSpokesNot InterestedProvincesMarrying
Author:Sharon Shinn
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“On bended knee is no way to be free lifting up an empty cup I ask silently that all my destinations will accept the one that's me so I can breath Circles they grow and they swallow people whole half their lives they say goodnight to wive's they'll never know got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul so it goes.”

PeopleKnowsWayMindI CanSoulWholeAsksGrowsHalfAcceptingTeacherEmptyBreathsCirclesMy SoulCupsKneesDestinationLiftingLifting UpEmpty CupSaying Goodnight
Author:Eddie Vedder
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