Quotes about light
page 9

“She'd ended up passing out, and sometime later, John must have gotten up to use the loo and left the light on. Probably to make sure she didn't feel lost if she woke up.
Because that's the kind of male he was.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Mine

Feeling

“They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.”

Edward Lear The Owl and the Pussycat

St. 3.
Source: The Owl and the Pussycat (1871)

Dance

“You couldn't have strength without weakness, you couldn't have light without dark, you couldn't have love without loss”

Jodi Picoult book The Tenth Circle

Source: The Tenth Circle

Love, Loss

“The main thing is to write
for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust
that imagines its haven like your hands at night
dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast.
You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous.
Take off from here.”

Seamus Heaney book Station Island

Source: Station Island

Dreams, Imagination, Sun, Joy

“Oh. "So the best way to fight you is to strip naked and attack?"
His eyes flashed with a wicked light. "Yes. You should try it and see what happens.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Burn for Me

Way, Fight

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Money

“Love is not consolation, it is light.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

As quoted in Simone Weil (1954) by Eric Walter Frederick Tomlin, p. 47

Love

“When young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of hate, suspicion and despair, all the love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge. Though it may turn darkened eyes for a while to the light, and teach faith where no faith was.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Love, Hate, World, Faith

“But after I got them to leave and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn't any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

“Because I was more often happy for other people, I got to spend more time being happy. And as I saw more light in everybody else, I seemed to have more myself. (250)”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Source: Lit From Within: Tending Your Soul For Lifelong Beauty

Happiness, People, Time

“The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me, with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

Smile, Hell, Kiss

“Up in this air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.”

Karen Blixen book Out of Africa

Source: Out of Africa

Heart, Drawing

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Future

“Even in the darkest moments, light exists if you have faith to see it.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Faith

“How swiftly the strained honey
of afternoon light
flows into darkness

and the closed bud shrugs off
its special mystery
in order to break into blossom:

as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become precious”

Lisel Mueller (1924) German poet

Source: Alive Together

“He smelled the garden, the yellow shield of light smote his eyes, and he whispered, "Life is so beautiful."
…
Yes, he thought, if I can die saying, "Life is so beautiful," then nothing else is important.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Life, Beauty

“Constellations shine with light that was emitted aeons ago, and I wait for something to come to me, words that a poet might use to illuminate life's mysteries. But there is nothing.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Wedding

Source: The Wedding

Life, Waiting

“Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

Source: The Tale of Despereaux (2004)

World

“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Books, Youth, Age, Reading

“If light is outlawed, then only outlaws will be able to see where they're going.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

Source: Tomorrow Stories, Vol. 2

“No person has ever held all the power. There must be a balance between chaos and order, dark and light. With the Temple magic bound to you, the realms are no longer in balance. The power could change you… and you could change the magic.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Change, Personality

“Once freedom lights its beacon in man's heart, the gods are powerless against him.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

God, Freedom, Heart

“Claim your space. Draw a circle of light around it. Push back against the dark. Don't just survive. Celebrate.”

Charles Frazier (1950) American writer

Source: Nightwoods

Drawing

“Oh, Blimey O'Riley's pantyhose…. What is the point of Shakespeare? I know he is a genius and so on, but he does rave on. 'What light doth through yonder window break?' It's the bloody moon, for God sake, Will, get a grip!”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

Variant: Oh Blimey O‘Reilly's pantyhose... what is the point of Shakespeare? I know he is a genius and so on, but he does rave on. It's the bloody moon, for God's sake, Will, get a grip!!
Source: Dancing in My Nuddy-Pants

God

“Hazel always used to say There's not enough darkness in the entire universe to snuff out the light of just one little candle.”

Fannie Flagg (1944) American actress, comedian and author

Source: I Still Dream About You

Universe

“To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.”

Brennan Manning book The Ragamuffin Gospel

p. 11 https://books.google.com/books?id=sUTZCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 <br class="br">1990s, The Ragamuffin Gospel (1990)

Life, God, Learning

“Weakness' is weakness only in light of the aims man sets for himself, the instruments at his disposal and the laws he imposes.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

Law

“No matter how you are feeling, get up every morning and prepare to let your light shine forth.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), What should survivors tell their children?

Feeling

“Light
Light
The visible reminder of Invisible Light.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

“The Symbol of all Art is the Prism. The goal is destructive. To break up the white light of objective realism into the secret glories it contains.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Secret, Art

“As we all know, blinking lights means science.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

Science

“Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

Guide to Kulchur (1938), p. 55
Variant: Man reading shd. be man intensely alive. The book shd. be a ball of light in one's hand.

Books, Reading

“To a dull mind all of nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Variant: To the illuminated mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.

World, Nature

“Art flies around truth, but with the definite intention of not getting burnt. Its capacity lies in finding in the dark void a place where the beam of light can be intensely caught, without this having been perceptible before.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Source: Blue Octavo Notebooks

Truth, Art

“It was like being at the bottom of an ocean, she said. There was no light and a whole ocean crushing down on you. But most people had gotten so used to it they thought it normal, they forgot even that there was a world above.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

People, World

“There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Winter

“Side by Side:
We sat side by side in the morning light & looked out at the future together.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Future

“It means she chose light over darkness. I want people to know that so they'll always remember.
I always will.
Bonnie McCullough”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: The Fury

People

“A Warrior of Light never resorts to trickery, but he knows how to distract his opponent.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Warrior of the Light

“In light this bright, after so long in the dark, everything we can see is only black and white. Only glaring
shape-outlines we have to blink against.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

“Does it take the harsh light of disaster to show a person’s true nature?”

Jean-Dominique Bauby (1952–1997) French journalist, author and editor of the French fashion magazine ELLE

Nature, Personality

“Perfection is the satin-lined casket of creativity and originality. If you are a perfectionist, at least stop telling everybody you're one and try to get over it yourself, alone in your home with the lights off”

Augusten Burroughs (1965) American writer

Source: This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.

Home, Perfection

“Far below ran the silver ribbon of the East River, braceleted by shining bridges, flecked by boats as small as flyspecks, splitting the shining banks of light that were Manhattan and Brooklyn on either side.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

“Impossible; for how many people did you know who refracted your own light to you?”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

People

“In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength.”

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War

“Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Heard in the D. A. Pennebaker documentary Dont Look Back (1967)

“It's not that we fear the place of darkness, but that we don't think we are worth the effort to find the place of light.”

Hugh Prather (1938–2010) American writer

Source: Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person

Fear, Thinking, Effort

“We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Love, People, Heart, Christ

“If things were different, if there were no revolution, no war, no threads of light, if he were rich, would he go back to London with her and ask for her hand in marriage? He smiled, for the answer was simple. Yes, yes, he would.”

Sally Gardner book The Red Necklace

Source: The Red Necklace

Marriage, War, Smile

“How do you judge the brightness of a light when you’re the source? A spotlight can never see the shadows it casts.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnWholly

“Unless we form the habit of going to the Bible in bright moments as well as in trouble, we cannot fully respond to its consolations because we lack equilibrium between light and darkness.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

“To the untrue man, the whole universe is false- it is impalpable- it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself is in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

Universe, Falseness

“It enclosed us in its laceries as we watched the moon spill across the Atlantic like wine from an overturned glass. With the light all around us, we felt secret in that moon-infused water like pearls forming in the soft tissues of oysters.”

Pat Conroy book Beach Music

Source: Beach Music

Secret, Water, Wine

“The darkness has it's own light.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

“Pointing to another world will never stop vice among us; shedding light over this world can alone help us.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

World, Help

“God knows the mess we’re in when He calls us. His light shines greater through “cracked pots” than it does through those who have it all together.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

God

“But why don't you take him with you into the light?
He does not deserve the light, he deserves peace”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

Peace

“There are dead stars that still shine because their light is trapped in time. Where do I stand in this light, which does not strictly exist?”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

Star, Time, Dead

“Where music thundered let the mind be still,
Where the will triumphed let there be no will,
What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Music

“Invitation to Dance-
It’s a Dance. And sometimes they turn the lights off in this ballroom.
But we’ll dance anyway, you and I. Even in the Dark. Especially in the Dark.
May I have the pleasure?”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Pleasure, Dance

“A shadow is never created in darkness. It is born of light. We can be blind to it and blinded by it. Our shadow asks us to look at what we don’t want to see”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

“A Baby Sermon-
The lighting and thunder, they go and they come: But the stars and the stillness are always at home”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Home, Star, Baby

“You should shine with all of your light all the time.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Time

“There are two ways of spreading light.. to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Way, Motivational, Deep, Inspirational

“The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 74, p. 232
Context: Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thank God it always passed. A school of fish appeared around the net or a knot cried out to be reknotted. Or I thought of my family, of how they were spared this terrible agony. The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving.

Love, God, Heart

“Darkness may cover light, but that is not the same thing as putting it out. Whereas, to overcome darkness, all light need do is to exist.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Source: Sunlight and Shadow: A Retelling of The Magic Flute

“Warriors of the light are not perfect. Their beauty lies in accepting this fact and still desiring to grow and to learn.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

(1997)
Source: Warrior of the Light

Beauty, Learning, Perfection

“The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!”

Matthew Arnold Dover Beach

St. 1
Dover Beach (1867)
Source: Dover Beach and Other Poems

Sea, Night

“Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

love

“Before you can see the Light, you have to deal with the darkness.”

Dan Millman (1946) American self help writer

Source: Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior

“Darkness approaches from outside.
I feel no light inside me strong enough to resist it.”

Christopher Pike book The Last Vampire

Source: The Last Vampire

Feeling, Strong

“The snow was too light to stay, the ground too warm to keep it. And the strange spring snow fell only in that golden moment of dawn, the turning of the page between night and day.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Source: Palace of Stone

Spring, Night

“You have the nicest window, you know? None of the others can even compete. It´s not flashy like the others, or bleary – your window gives of this nice, quiet light.”

Banana Yoshimoto book The Lake

Source: The Lake

“The place of true healing is a fierce place. It's a giant place. it's a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light.”

Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Beauty

“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1850s, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852)
Context: At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

God, Feeling

“To die,
so young to die.
No, no, not I,
I love the warm sunny skies,
light, song, shining eyes,
I want no war, no battle cry,
No, no, not I.”

Hannah Senesh (1921–1944) Jewish poet and anti-nazi fighter in World War II

Love, War, Cry

“But still, sometimes, in the heart of winter when the light outside seemed yellow- sleepy, like a cat curled up on a sofa…”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

Cats, Winter, Heart

“Sophie said a bad word. In the dim light she had stubbed her toe on one of the many dusty bricks piled around the place.
Naughty-naughty" Twinkle said.
Oh shut up!" Sophie said, standing on one leg to hold her toe. "Why don't you grow up?”

Diana Wynne Jones House of Many Ways

Source: House of Many Ways

“May you grow up to be righteous, may you grow up to be true. May you always know the truth and see the lights surrounding you. May you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong. May you stay forever young.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Truth, Courage, Strong

“Yes, a dark time passed over this land, but now there is something like light.”

Dave Eggers Zeitoun

Source: Zeitoun

Time

“since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to the sun, darkness to light”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

People, Sun

“Heart, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.

When you have done, pray tell me,
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you're lagging,
I may remember him!”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Love, p. 172
Collected Poems (1993)
Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Heart, Night, Forgetting

“Light and darkness dancing together, born together, born of each other, neither preceding, neither following, both fully being in joyful rhythm.”

Madeleine L'Engle A Swiftly Tilting Planet

Source: A Swiftly Tilting Planet

Dance

“Darkness will never take me… because I have you. Light of my life, Marissa. That's what you are."
-Butch and Marissa”

Jessica Bird book Lover Revealed

Source: Lover Revealed

Life

“Sunset is the saddest light there is.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

“Surrounded by darkness yet enfolded in light”

Alan Brennert (1954) American writer

Source: Moloka'i

“Pea was aware suddenly of how fragile her heart was, how much darkness was inside it, fighting, always, with the light. She did not like the rat. She would neverlike the rat, but she knew what she must do to save her own heart.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

Source: The Tale of Despereaux

Heart, Fight

“People have wanted to narrate since first we banged rocks together & wondered about fire. There’ll be tellings as long as there are any of us here, until the stars disappear one by one like turned-out lights.”

China Miéville book Railsea

Source: Railsea

People, Star

“The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn't look like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, he's going to keep digging, he's going to keep trying to do right and make up for what's gone before, just because that's who he is.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

“I want to go about like the light-footed goats.”

Johanna Spyri book Heidi

Source: Heidi

“The thing about light is that it really isn’t yours; it’s what you gather and shine back. And it gets more power from reflectiveness; if you sit still and take it in, it fills your cup, and then you can give it off yourself.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“I remember every single spot of light that ever gouged a shadow beside your bones.”

Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948) Novelist, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Watching a peaceful death of a human being reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment only to disappear into the endless night forever.”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) American psychiatrist

On Death and Dying (1969)

Death, Peace, Star, Night

“But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.”

J. Sheridan Le Fanu book Carmilla

Variant: Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exists and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.
Source: Carmilla

Dreams, Personality

“The atmosphere of the place soothed her automatically; the rich lantern lights, the sheer scent of paper and leather, and the fact that everywhere she looked, there were books, books, beautiful books.”

Genevieve Cogman (1972) novelist and game designer

Source: The Invisible Library

Books, Beauty