ŷ������

“While this is all very amusing, the kiss that will free the girl is the kiss that she most desires,�� she said. “Only that and nothing more.��

Jace’s heart started to pound. He met the Queen’s eyes with his own. “Why are you doing this?��

�� “Desire is not always lessened by disgust…And as my words bind my magic, so you can know the truth. If she doesn’t desire your kiss, she won’t be free.��

“You don’t have to do this, Clary, it’s a trick—�� (Simon)

...Isabelle sounded exasperated. ‘Who cares, anyway? It’s just a kiss.��

“That’s right,�� Jace said. Clary looked up, then finally, and her wide green eyes rested on him. He moved toward her... and put his hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him�� He could feel the tension in his own body, the effort of holding back, of not pulling her against him and taking this one chance, however dangerous and stupid and unwise, and kissing her the way he had thought he would never, in his life, be able to kiss her again. “It’s just a kiss,�� he said, and heard the roughness in his own voice, and wondered if she heard it, too.

Not that it mattered—there was no way to hide it. It was too much. He had never wanted like this before... She understood him, laughed when he laughed, saw through the defenses he put up to what was underneath. There was no Jace Wayland more real than the one he saw in her eyes when she looked at him�� All he knew was that whatever he had to owe to Hell or Heaven for this chance, he was going to make it count.

He...whispered in her ear. “You can close your eyes and think of England, if you like,�� he said.
Her eyes fluttered shut, her lashes coppery lines against her pale, fragile skin. “I’ve never even been to England,�� she said, and the softness, the anxiety in her voice almost undid him. He had never kissed a girl without knowing she wanted it too, usually more than he did, and this was Clary, and he didn’t know what she wanted. Her eyes were still closed, but she shivered, and leaned into him �� barely, but it was permission enough.

His mouth came down on hers. And that was it. All the self-control he’d exerted over the past weeks went, like water crashing through a broken dam. Her arms came up around his neck and he pulled her against him�� His hands flattened against her back... and she was up on the tips of her toes, kissing him as fiercely as he was kissing her... He clung to her more tightly, knotting his hands in her hair, trying to tell her, with the press of his mouth on hers, all the things he could never say out loud...

His hands slid down to her waist... he had no idea what he would have done or said next, if it would have been something he could never have pretended away or taken back, but he heard a soft hiss of laughter �� the Faerie Queen �� in his ears, and it jolted him back to reality. He pulled away from Clary before he it was too late, unlocking her hands from around his neck and stepping back... Clary was staring at him. Her lips were parted, her hands still open. Her eyes were wide. Behind her, Alec and Isabelle were gaping at them; Simon looked as if he was about to throw up.

...If there had ever been any hope that he could have come to think of Clary as just his sister, this �� what had just happened between them �� had exploded it into a thousand pieces... He tried to read Clary’s face �� did she feel the same? �� I know you felt it, he said to her with his eyes, and it was half bitter triumph and half pleading. I know you felt it, too…She glanced away from him... He whirled on the Queen. “Was that good enough?�� he demanded. “Did that entertain you?��

The Queen gave him a look: special and secretive and shared between the two of them. “We are quite entertained," she said. “But not, I think, so much as the both of you.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

“I settled on the floor and whispered to Sam, “I want you to listen to me, if you can.�� I leaned the side of my face against his ruff and remembered the golden wood he had shown me so long ago. I remembered the way the yellow leaves, the color of Sam’s eyes, fluttered and twisted, crashing butterflies, on their way to the ground. The slender white trunks of the birches, creamy and smooth as human skin. I remembered Sam standing in the middle of the wood, his arms stretched out, a dark, solid form in the dream of the trees. His coming to me, me punching his chest, the soft kiss. I remembered every kiss we’d ever had, and I remembered every time I’d curled in his human arms. I remembered the soft warmth of his breath on the back of my neck while we slept.
I remembered Sam.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver

“I'm a happy person. If you want to be around me, you can either choose to be happy too, or follow the signs to the nearest exit!”
― Sharon Swan

“Everybody wants what feels good; and if we wish a symphony of attention from a bunch of caring people and a harmony of happy sounds during our lifetime, we must not act like dark horses, saving up our emotions, but be bountiful to all significant others. ( “Axelle Red ��)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“The night stared me in the face, amorphous, blind, infinite, without frontiers. Not a single start relieved the darkness behind the glass.”
― Stanisław Lem, Solaris

“The beauty with modest smile, whose secrecy of silent love had just been stolen, beamed at this wonderful offer and she replenished herself with his love as a carefree child cossetted with luxurious warmth after a cold shower.”
― Ashmita Acharya, The Beginning: The Tears of My Heart

“This night is going well.
"Hello there."
I speak too soon.
Dunstan enters, his two cronies behind him. Everyone standing around goes quiet. I flinch, but not for me; he's gazing at Ivy like a lion at a piece of meat. Ivy just keeps grinning.
"And may I say you are the prettiest girl I've seen all night," Dunstan says, not noticing the fact Ivy's already taken.
Ivy stares down at her feet, a pale blush the color of pink roses brushed across her cheeks. "You don't mean that," she whispers, not knowing she's accidentally flirting.
"I really do," Dunstan continues in his oily, supposedly charming voice, and I roll my eyes. I want to pull Ivy away, but if I do, Dunstan will notice me. And without Melanie breathing down his neck, who knows what he'll try to pull?
"So what's your name, beautiful?"
Ivy blush deepens and i feel my nails dig into my skin. I'm the one whose supposed to tell her she's pretty, not this jerk.
"My name is Ivy," Ivy replies.
"Ivy. I like it. It suits you."
I feel an arm on my shoulder and turning around, I see Aidan holding me back. Unconsciously, I've stepped forward, ready to challenge him.
"So what is your name?" Ivy asks, still shyly peering down at her shoeless feet.
Acting all surprised he got asked this, Dunstan runs a hand through his hair. "My name is Dunstan."
Ivy's flush instantly vanishes, the corners of her mouth turns down, and her eyebrows knit together.
"Dunstan? This is your name?" Quiet as she's being, I know there's anger there. I'd hate to be the recipient of this tone.
But Dunstan the egotistical baboon butt isn't aware of the change. "Yep, that's me."
"What is your last name?" I feel someone shaking. Aidan's still hanging on to me, and he's nervous, too.
Dunstan still doesn't detect her malice. "Why, my last name's Lebelle. Dunstan Lebelle." He chuckles. "Perhaps you've heard of me?"
"Oh yes," Ivy hisses, suddenly radiating ferocious fury. "I've heard much about the boy who nearly got Rylan Forester killed."
Even with blaring music in the next room, you can hear a pin drop throughout the kitchen as everyone goes quiet, having lost all ability to talk due to flapping jaws. Someone whistles.
"Excuse me?" Dunstan sounds like he can't believe what he's hearing.
"You heard me." Ivy glares, knowing she has him caught. "You pushed Rylan into the swamp where the alligator attacked him. Sure, you can blame the alligator, but when you really think about, if you had not pushed him in, Rylan wouldn't have nearly died. Who, by the way," Ivy steps back, clasping my free hand in hers, "happens to be my friend and my date."
Everyone bursts into titters—no one has ever spoken to Dustan Lebelle like that—as Dunstan stares at me wide-eyed, finally taking in my existence. But before he can do anything, Ivy pulls my hand.
"We're leaving," she declares, giving Dunstan one last stink eye. And with her nose in the air and me following, Ivy boldly walks right out the back door.”
― Colleen Boyd

“To think I actually talked to the boy who nearly got you killed," Ivy mutters, shuddering with disgust. "I'm so sorry I did."
"It's okay. You didn't know," I reassure her as we take a seat on some pool chairs.
"But you told me before what his appearance was. I should have recognized him!"
"It's fine, Ivy. Even if you did your best to avoid him, he would've found way to hit on you eventually."
Ivy wrinkles her nose at the unfamiliar language. " 'Hit on'? What does that mean?"
"Flirting. Or, for Dunstan, more like a procedure. He's been hitting on any pretty girl he sees ever since he and Melanie broke up. I don't know if he's doing this to make her jealous or what, but it's really annoying."
I look back up to see Ivy go rigid. For some reason she looks classically surprised; her hand is over her mouth, and the rosy blush is back with a vengeance,
"Ivy? You okay?"
Ivy removes her hand, muttering something so quietly I can't hear it.
"Sorry?"
"You called me pretty." The moment those words are said, Ivy stares down at her feet as her face gets brighter.
"Well, yeah," I murmur, my face hot. "You really are beautiful tonight, Ivy.”
― Colleen Boyd, Swamp Angel

“I loved rhubarb, that hardy, underappreciated garden survivor that leafed out just as the worst of winter melted away. Not everyone was a fan, especially of the bitter, mushy, overcooked version. Yet sometimes a little bitterness could bring out the best in other flavors. Bitter rhubarb made sunny-day strawberry face the realities of life- and taste all the better for it. As I brushed the cakes with a deep pink glaze made from sweet strawberry and bottled rhubarb bitters, I hoped I would change rhubarb doubters. Certainly, the little Bundt cakes looked as irresistible as anything I had ever seen in a French patisserie.”
― Judith Fertig, The Memory of Lemon

“We stand around the tray. Just staring at it. Forever in awe. The chicken fried steak will be just as she remembered it. The biscuits will flake just like they used to. The pecan pie will be sweet and will take her back to those times she sat at the tables just outside the shack on a summer's day. And for once, she'll have fresh strawberry ice cream to go with it.”
― Liza Palmer, Nowhere But Home

“A swan looking at the world from a misty calm lake is like a creature looking at the world from space! All he sees is a large herd of people governed by the most stupid and most inadequate people!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Soft white billowed about the surface, blowing gently against the windowsill in remembrance of the enigmatic swan’s graceful flight. Or so it reminded me, alluringly tranquil in its flicker of light and form, but not quite translucent. Not quite here.”
― Gina Marinello-Sweeney, Peter

“A Blackberry Winter by Stewart Stafford

Pond ice beneath the hawthorn tree,
Reeds grasping from the frigid sculpture,
Freezing fog clinging to land and foliage,
Nature hindered but still in amelioration.

Horses in crunching frosted footsteps march,
To break the water trough's thick glaze,
And drink thirstily in raw, jagged gulps,
Until the thaw smoothes itself upon milder days.

A swan slips and skates on the icicled river,
Hoarfrost-encrusted rocks a guard of honour,
The Anatidae ascension, maladroit but effective,
Sure to pluck better days from its plumed reign.

© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. - Amir”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“Good and conscious breathing regulates active and logical thinking. ("My radio")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“I was always fishing for something on the radio. Just like trains and bells, it was part of the soundtrack of my life. I moved the dial up and down and Roy Orbison's voice came blasting out of the small speakers. His new song, "Running Scared," exploded into the room.
Orbison, though, transcended all the genres - folk, country, rock and roll or just about anything. His stuff mixed all the styles and some that hadn't even been invented yet. He could sound mean and nasty on one line and then sing in a falsetto voice like Frankie Valli in the next. With Roy, you didn't know if you were listening to mariachi or opera. He kept you on your toes. With him, it was all about fat and blood. He sounded like he was singing from an Olympian mountaintop and he meant business. One of his previous songs, "Ooby Dooby" was deceptively simple, but Roy had progressed. He was now singing his compositions in three or four octaves that made you want to drive your car over a cliff. He sang like a professional criminal. Typically, he'd start out in some low, barely audible range, stay there a while and then astonishingly slip into histrionics. His voice could jar a corpse, always leave you muttring to yourself something like, "Man, I don't believe it." His songs had songs within songs. They shifted from major to minor key without any logic. Orbison was deadly serious - no pollywog and no fledgling juvenile. There wasn't anything else on the radio like him.”
― Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One

“One colour. One word. So many shades. The color of african skin, of shadow on snow, of a jay's throat, the color of saxophones at dusk, of orbiting police lights smeared across tenement windows, of a flame's intestines, of the faint tracery of veins visible beneath the ghost-flesh of her forearm's underside, of loneliness, of melancholy. The blues.”
― Alan Moore

“Dark circles under my eyes sink deeper and deeper into my skull, in contrast to my pale skin there is an undeniable resemblance to a fresh corpse.”
― Dee Remy

“She wore a summer dress and it smelled of Hawaii- of the ocean, sun, teriburgers and plumeria. I squeezed her dress in my hand, wanting to be back there.”
― Alex Brunkhorst, The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine

“If you are a dreamer come in
If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer
If youre a pretender com sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in!”
― Shel Silverstein

“I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.”
― Pablo Neruda

“She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon. You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood.

She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell. All your tomorrows start here.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

“What a strange thing!
to be alive
beneath cherry blossoms.”
― Kobayashi Issa, Poems

“There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask "What if I fall?"
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?”
― Erin Hanson

“I have drunken deep of joy,
And I will taste no other wine tonight.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.

Goblets they carved there for themselves
And harps of gold; where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.

The pines were roaring on the height,
The wind was moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder”
― Lawrence Ferlinghetti

“Summer night--
even the stars
are whispering to each other.”
― Kobayashi Issa

“Once, poets were magicians. Poets were strong, stronger than warriors or kings �� stronger than old hapless gods. And they will be strong once again.”
― Greg Bear

“Love.

Because of you, in gardens of blossoming
Flowers I ache from the perfumes of spring.
I have forgotten your face, I no longer
Remember your hands; how did your lips
Feel on mine?

Because of you, I love the white statues
Drowsing in the parks, the white statues that
Have neither voice nor sight.

I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice;
I have forgotten your eyes.

Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to
My vague memory of you. I live with pain
That is like a wound; if you touch me, you will
Make to me an irreperable harm.

Your caresses enfold me, like climbing
Vines on melancholy walls.

I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to
Glimpse you in every window.

Because of you, the heady perfumes of
Summer pain me; because of you, I again
Seek out the signs that precipitate desires:
Shooting stars, falling objects.”
― Pablo Neruda