“I think you will agree that I am alive in every part of this book; turn back twenty, thirty, one hundred pages - I am back there. That is why I hate the story; characters are not snakes that they must shed their skins on every page - there can only be one action: what a man is. When you have understood this, you will be through with novels.” ThinkingMenWritingBookCharacterStoriesActionHateTurnsNovelAlivePagesUnderstoodHundredSkinsI HateTwentiesAgreeThirtyShedSnakesI Am Alive Author:Kenneth Patchen
“The most important part of the practice is for the question to remain alive and for your whole body and mind to become a question. In Zen they say that you have to ask with the pores of your skin and the marrow of your bones. A Zen saying points out: Great questioning, great awakening; little questioning, little awakening; no questioning, no awakening.” MindLittlesImportantWholeBodyAsksPracticeAliveSkinsBonesAwakeningQuestioningMind And BodyMarrow Author:Martine Batchelor
“I realize that most of us live on the skin - on the surface - without appreciating just how wonderful it is simply to be alive at all.” RealizingAliveWonderfulAppreciateSkinsSurface Author:Audrey Hepburn
“And I felt more like me than I ever had, as if the years I'd lived so far had formed layers of skin and muscle over myself that others saw as me when the real one had been underneath all along, and I knew writing- even writing badly- had peeled away those layers, and I knew then that if I wanted to stay awake and alive, if I wanted to stay me, I would have to keep writing.” IfsWritingYearsRealWantedFeltSawsAliveSkinsLike MeAwakeMusclesLayersReal Ones Author:Andre Dubus
“So Nemerov showed us this picture, which is of Apollo flaying Marcius. You don't think of Apollo as being the sort of person who would skin someone alive. But the story behind it was that there was this guy who was a really great musician, and all the women loved him, and people started saying he was the best musician in the world, so Apollo got jealous and he challenged this guy to a musical dual. They would each play a song and the muses would judge who was the better musician.” PeopleThinkingWorldPersonsPlayStoriesGuySongBehindsAliveJudgingMusicianSkinsMusicalJealousMuseReally GreatThis GuyApolloGreat MusicGreat Musician Author:Larkin Grimm
“I feel good in my own skin because I've accepted the fact that I'm me. That's what's so great about being alive and being on this planet: Everybody's different.” FeelsDifferentFactsMy OwnAlivePlanetsSkinsAcceptedFeel GoodI Feel Good Author:Kelly Osbourne
“There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contains the rocker. It's an inside kind--wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.” KindSeemsSoundAliveFeetLonelinessArmsSkinsShipsKneesDrySmoothHolding OnRockers Author:Toni Morrison
“When my friend Melot set the trap, I think I knew it. I turned to death full face, as I had turned to love with my whole body. I would let death enter me as you had entered me. You had crept along my blood vessels through the wound, and the blood that circulates returns to the heart. You circulated me, you made me blush like a girl in the hoop of your hands. You were in my arteries and my lymph, you were the colour just under my skin, and if I cut myself, it was you I bled. Red Isolde, alive on my fingers, and always the force of blood pushing you back to my heart.” IfsThinkingHeartMadeWholeBodyHandsFacesGirlForceCuttingAliveBloodReturnMy HeartMy FriendsRedSkinsFingersWoundsColourPushingTrapsVesselArteriesBlood Vessels Author:Jeanette Winterson
“Colin's skin was alive with the feeling of connection to everyone in that car and everyone not in it. And he was feeling not-unique in the very best possible way.” WayFeelingsAliveCarUniqueConnectionsSkins Author:John Green
“Exercise II. Write a diary, imagining that you are trying to make an old person jealous. I have written an example to get you started: Dear Diary, I spent the morning admiring my skin elasticity. God alive, I feel supple.” FeelsWritingTryingPersonsMorningAliveWrittenExampleExerciseSkinsDearJealousDiariesAdmiringSuppleOld PersonElasticity Author:Joe Dunthorne
“My flesh was burning where the skin was scraped off my knees, and I was afraid that I couldn't be alive anymore with so much pain, and at the same time I knew I was alive because it hurt. I was afraid that death would find its way into me through this open knee and I quickly covered my knee with my hands.” WayHandsPainHurtAliveSkinsFleshBurningKneesCoveredIt Hurts Author:Herta Muller
“I long for the days of disorder. I want them back, the days when I was alive on the earth, rippling in the quick of my skin, heedless and real. I was dumb-muscled and angry and real. This is what I long for, the breach of peace, the days of disarray when I walked real streets and did things slap-bang and felt angry and ready all the time, a danger to others and a distant mystery to myself.” WantLongRealEarthFeltAliveMysteryStreetsDangerReadySkinsAngryDumbDisorderBangsSlapBreachDisarrayReal Street Book:Underworld: A Novel Source: Underworld: A Novel
“I touched my lips to hers again, and this time, it was a very different sort of kiss. It was six years’ worth of kissing, her lips coming to life under mine, tasting of orange and of desire. Her fingers ran through my sideburns and into my hair before linking around my neck, alive and cool on my warm skin. I was wild and tame and pulled into shreds and crushed into being all at once. For once in my human life, my mind didn’t wander to compose a song lyric or store the moment for later reflection. For once in my life, I was here and nowhere else. -Sam” YearsMindHumansDifferentMomentsDesireSongAliveMinesHairKissingSixReflectionSkinsFingersLipsWarmStoresWanderHuman LifeRanNecksTouchedOrangeCrushedTastingKissing HerSideburns Author:Maggie Stiefvater
“My thoughts took frantic flight, wanting to escape this prison, and seek out the wind so it could fan my hair and sting my skin, and make me feel alive again.” FeelsAliveFansWindHairSkinsPrisonFlightMy ThoughtsFrantic Book:Flowers in the Attic Source: Flowers in the Attic
“So you go away from where you were afraid. Some stay; some go; it's a big difference, leaving the humiliations of childhood, the morbid fear. We didn't have much to say to each other, the ones that left and the ones that stayed. Children get shamed by fear but you can't tell the adults that; they don't care. They make children into dead things like they are. If there's something left alive in you, you run. You run from the poor little child on her knees; fear burned the skin off all right; she's still on her knees, dead and raw and tender.” IfsChildrenLittlesStillsBigsCareRunningLeftDifferencesPoorAliveChildhoodAdultsSkinsLeavingDon't CareKneesGoing AwayBurnedHumiliationMorbid Author:Andrea Dworkin
“I wrote this [Most Kings] before MJ died, and his death only proves my point: When he was alive, the King of Pop, people were tireless in taking him down, accepting as truth every accusation people made against him, assuming the worst until they drove him away. When he died, suddenly he was beloved again - people realized that the charges against him might really have been bogus, and that the skin lightening was really caused by a disease, and that his weirdness was part of his artistry. But when he was alive and on top, they couldn't wait to bring him down.” PeopleHas BeensMadeMightWaitingAcceptingAliveWorstKingsProveDiseaseSkinsDiedAssumingPopsBelovedArtistryAccusationWeirdness Author:Jay-Z
“He kissed me, so gently at first that I melted. I pressed close against him as the kiss deepened, curling my arms around his neck and tumbling into pure sensation. The softness of his hair as I ran my fingers through it; his arms hands on my skin, caressing me. It felt so, so good. I'd been afraid that I'd never have this again--this sense of being so achingly alive that every nerve ending was on fire.” FirstsHandsFeltFireAliveHairArmsPureKissingSkinsFingersRanNecksSensationsNervesSoftnessTumbling Author:L.A. Weatherly
“It is not so much light that falls over the world extended by your body its suffocating snow, as brightness, pouring itself out of you, as if you were burning inside. Under your skin the moon is alive.” IfsWorldBodyLightFallAliveMoonSkinsYour BodySnowBurningPouringBrightnessSuffocatingBurning Inside Author:Pablo Neruda
“A hundred years from now, people will look back on us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer better fantasies... And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.” PeopleKnowsWayFeelsYearsBelieveLooksRealMovingLife IsUsedFantasyLaughingSunAliveImagineWonderfulAirSeaHundredSkinsSmellBreatheSillyReal LifeBoatSaltSunlightReal YouElectronsGood LaughPhotonsLife Is Wonderful Book:The Lost World Source: The Lost World
“His mouth is on me, his hands, I can't wait and he's moving, already, love, it's been so long, I'm alive in my skin, again, arms around him, falling and water softly everywhere, never-ending.” LongI CanHandsMovingFallWaitingWaterAliveArmsMouthsSkinsNever EndingI'm Alive Book:The Handmaid's Tale Source: The Handmaid's Tale
“They began to tune up, and suddenly the auditorium was filled with a single sound - the most alive, three-dimensional thing I had ever heard. It made the hairs on my skin stand up, my breath catch in my throat....I felt the music like a physical thing; it didn't just sit in my ears, it flowed through me, around me, made my senses vibrate. It made my skin prickle and my palms dampen...It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.” MadeBeautifulThreeFeltSoundAliveHeardHairSkinsEarsBreathsFilledSensesTunesThroatBeautiful ThingsPalmsVibratePhysical ThingsAuditoriumsTune Up Author:Jojo Moyes
“I kissed him, trying to bring him back. I kissed him and let my lips rest against his so that our breath mingled and the tears from my eyes became salt on his skin, and I told myself that, somewhere, tiny particles of him would become tiny particles of me, ingested, swallowed, alive, perpetual. I wanted to press every bit of me against him. I wanted to will something into him. I wanted to give him every bit of life I felt and force him to live.” GivingTryingEyeWantedForceFeltBitsAliveTearsSkinsBreathsPressesLipsTinySaltPerpetualParticles Author:Jojo Moyes
“Do you know, Mother, that Haj Salem was buried alive in his home? Does he tell you stories in heaven now? I wish I had had a chance to meet him. To see his toothless grin and touch his leathery skin. To beg him, as you did in your youth, for a story from our Palestine. He was over one hundred years old, Mother. To have lived so long, only to be crushed to death by a bulldozer. Is this what it means to be Palestinian?” KnowsYearsMeanLongDoeStoriesHomeMotherHeavenWishChanceAliveYouthHundredSkinsDo You KnowBuriedPalestinianPalestineCrushedSalemToothlessBulldozers Author:Susan Abulhawa
“I have loved before, but it didn’t feel like this. I have kissed before, but it didn’t burn me alive. Maybe it lasts a minute, and maybe it’s an hour. All I know is that kiss, and how soft her skin is when it brushes against mine, and that, even if I did not know it until now, I have been waiting for this person forever.” IfsKnowsFeelsPersonsHas BeensLastsWaitingHoursForeverAliveMinutesMinesKissingSkinsBrushes Author:Jodi Picoult
“Part of the American myth is that people who are handed the skin of a dead sheep at graduating time think that it will keep their minds alive forever.” PeopleThinkingMindEducationForeverAliveSkinsMythGraduatesSheepLive Forever Author:John Mason Brown