“It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright.”
Source: Wolves of the Calla
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Stephen King 733
American author 1947Related quotes
“An empty day, though clear and bright,
Is just as dark as any night.”
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
Gertrude (1910)
Context: That life is difficult, I have often bitterly realized. I now had further cause for serious reflection. Right up to the present I have never lost the feeling of contradiction that lies behind all knowledge. My life has been miserable and difficult, and yet to others, and sometimes to myself, it has seemed rich and wonderful. Man's life seems to me like a long, weary night that would be intolerable if there were not occasionally flashes of light, the sudden brightness of which is so comforting and wonderful, that the moments of their appearance cancel out and justify the years of darkness.
The Dreamstone, Book One : The Gruagach, Ch. 1 : Of Fish and Fire
Arafel's Saga (1983)
Context: Men changed whatever they set hand to. They wrought their magic on beasts, to make them dull and patient. They brought fire and the reek of smoke to the dales. They brought lines and order to the curve of the hills. Most of all they brought the chill of iron, to sweep away the ancient shadows.
But they took the brightness too. It was inevitable, because that brightness was measured against that dark. Men piled stone on stone and made warm homes, and tamed some humbler, quieter things, but the darkest burrowed deep and the brightest went away, heartbroken.
Save one, whose patience or whose pride was more than all the rest.
So one place, one untouched place in all the world remained, a rather smallish forest near the sea and near humankind, keeping a time different than elsewhere.
Henry in Rosamond (c. 1707), Act III, sc. i.
Context: Where have my ravish'd senses been!
What joys, what wonders, have I seen!
The scene yet stands before my eye,
A thousand glorious deeds that lie
In deep futurity obscure,
Fights and triumphs immature,
Heroes immers'd in time's dark womb,
Ripening for mighty years to come,
Break forth, and, to the day display'd,
My soft inglorious hours upbraid.
Transported with so bright a scheme,
My waking life appears a dream.
Source: His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995), Ch. 18 : Fog and Ice