Quotes about sleep
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“Wha-what?" Her eyes fluttered open.
"Nothing," I shouted. "We're being followed by a slaying machine. Go back to sleep.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“Best friends are always together, always whispering and laughing and running, always at each other's house, having dinner, sleeping over. They are practically adopted by each other's parents. You can't pry them apart.”

Jerry Spinelli book Loser

Source: Loser

Parent, Housing

“Sullen monosyllabism, a sure sign of sleep deprivation.”

Jim Butcher book Death Masks

Source: Death Masks

“I can't think again. Not ever again. I don't know if you've ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Thinking

“Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Anniversary, Marriage

“Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and ablities were used in a way that served others.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Way, Success, Night

“In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Source: Humboldt From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'

People, Age

“It's always possible to wake someone from sleep, but no amount of noise will wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Variant: While it is always possible to wake a person who's sleeping, no amount of noise will wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.
Source: Eating Animals

“A girl who is willing to give every ounce of herself to someone, who could never betray her lover, who never suspects maliciousness of anyone, and whose sexuality sleeps in her, waiting to be stirred.”

Steve Martin book Shopgirl

Source: Shopgirl

Girl, Lovers, Waiting

“Bang! Now the animal
Is dead and dumb and done.
Nevermore to peep again, creep again, leap again,
Eat or sleep or drink again, oh, what fun!”

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) English poet and fiction writer

Hi!
Source: Rhymes and Verses: Collected Poems for Young People

Drink, Animals, Dead

“And that phrase - 'sleeping like a baby.' Some blonde said it blithely on the subway the other day. I wanted to lie down next to her and scream for five hours in her ear.”

Jenny Offill book Dept. of Speculation

Source: Dept. of Speculation

Lie, Baby

“It's not the content of our dreams that gives our second heart its dark color; it's the thoughts that go through our heads in those wakeful moments when sleep won't come. And those are the things we never tell anyone at all.”

Carolyn Parkhurst The Dogs of Babel

Source: The Dogs of Babel

Dreams, Color, Heart

“If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

Lying, Loss

“I cannot be awake, for nothing looks to me as it did before, or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep.”

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

Time

“Do you ever do that thing where you lie in bed and you can't sleep so you end up writing out recent conversation you've had? So they look like a play?'

Well you should. It's fun. I keep them. Look through them, sometimes.”

Nick Hornby book How to Be Good

Source: How to Be Good

Lie

“She decided she'd rather die in some less memorable way- maybe falling down the stairs, or going peacefully in her sleep at the age eighty, after a nice quiet life with Percy. Yes, that sounded good.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Life, Age, Way

“Drifting off to sleep, I thought about her. How nobody is perfect. How you just have to close your eyes and breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Heart, Perfection

“Don't open that door," she said. "The hallway is full of difficult dreams." And I asked her: "How do you know?" And she told me: "Because I was there a moment ago and I had to come back when I discovered I was sleeping on my heart.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Olhos de Cão Azul

Source: Ojos de perro azul

Dreams, Heart

“For dreams, too, are ghosts, desires chased in sleep, gone by morning.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Lair of Dreams

Dreams

“Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Variant: summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screeneed porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Color, Summer, Season

“Maybe I should add some graffiti to spice it up. For a good time call the Consort. Beast Lord eats your food and turns into a lion in his sleep. Mahon has hemorrhoids. Boudas do it better. Warning, paranoid attack jaguar on the prowl…”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Food, Time

“If I couldn't sleep, I could read.”

Gail Carson Levine Ella Enchanted

Source: Ella Enchanted

Reading

“And you, my Sassenach? What were you born for? To be lady of a manor, or to sleep in the fields like a gypsy? To be a healer, or a don's wife, or an outlaw's lady?"

"I was born for you," I said simply, and held out my arms to him.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

“Imagination is the golden-eyed monster that never sleeps. It must be fed; it cannot be ignored.”

Patricia A. McKillip (1948) American fantasy writer

Imagination

“Commander! Sir! Wake up!"
Jack surfaced from sleep, wondering who the commander was and wishing he'd respond so he could go back to sleep - until he remembered that he was the commander.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Dragon Heir

“She felt herself needing more and more sleep. When she awoke in the morning, she thought of when she might lie down again - and when she would sleep. She started going to the movies.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963

Lie

“Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day's chalking.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Source: The Alphabet of Grace (1970)

Life, Forgiveness, Night

“I'll go sleep on the couch," James said. "No, you won't," Poppy said firmly. She flopped on the bed beside him. "You're dead tired. And I know I'm safe with you." James grinned without moving his arm. "Because I'm dead tired?”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Secret Vampire/Daughters of Darkness/Spellbinder

Dead

“Every closed eye is not sleeping, and every open eye is not seeing.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

“You have to sleep sometime. (Xypher)
So do you. (Julian)
Down, boys, down. Please, I just want to be free before I get testosterone poisoning. (Simone)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dream Chaser

Boy

“Sometimes I get real lonely sleeping with you.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase

“No, I don’t live in heartache. I don’t cry myself to sleep or any of that. I am, I tell myself, over it. But I do feel a void, icky as that sounds. And—like it or not—I still think about her every single day.”

Harlan Coben book Six Years

Source: Six Years

Feeling, Thinking, Cry

“It's cold and it's winter and the world has gone to sleep”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

World, Winter

“I sleep better knowing that a naked cork-eater is not sneaking around at night, stealing my underwear.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Bermudez Triangle

Night

“Now I lay me down to sleep my bomb proof cellar's good and deep but if I'm killed before I wake remember god it's for your sake amen.”

Dalton Trumbo book Johnny Got His Gun

Source: Johnny Got His Gun

God

“Murder? You mean he's dead?"
"No. He's resting comfortably," I said. "People always sleep best with their heads at a ninety-degree angle. He looks comfortable, doesn't he?"
(Paige & Elena)”

Kelley Armstrong book Stolen

Source: Stolen

People, Dead

“I sleep with my feet on moss carpets, my branches in the cotton of the clouds.”

Anaïs Nin book Under a Glass Bell

Source: Under a Glass Bell

“Am I sleeping? Have I slept at all? This is insomnia.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

“I should rather have you than a heap of gold, even if it were very comfortable to sleep on.”

Naomi Novik book His Majesty's Dragon

Source: His Majesty's Dragon

“This was the price you paid for sleeping together. This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for loving each other.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

Love, People

“On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the Glowing Hours with Flying feet.”

George Gordon Byron Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Source: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Pleasure, Youth, Joy, Dance

“She didn't need to understand the meaning of life; it was enough to find someone who did, and then fall asleep in his arms and sleep as a child sleeps, knowing that someone stronger than you is protecting you from all evil and all danger”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

Life, Understanding, Evil

“Maybe you don't like your job, maybe you didn't get enough sleep--
But nobody likes their job, nobody got enough sleep.
Maybe you just had the worst day of your life;
Well, you know, there's no escape.
That's no excuse. Just suck up and be nice.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Pixie
Song lyrics
Source: Ani Difranco - Little Plastic Castle

Life

“Sleep is God. Go worship.”

Jim Butcher book Death Masks

Source: Death Masks

God

“I’m just trying to wake up - I’m so afraid of sleeping all my life and then dying - I want to wake up first. I wouldn’t care if it was just for an hour, as long as I was properly alive and awake…”

Philip Pullman book The Amber Spyglass

Source: The Amber Spyglass

Life

“Once upon a time, Sleeping Beauty decided to take a nap from which she would never wake up.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: You Know Where to Find Me

Beauty, Time

“No rest
without love,
No sleep
without dreams
of love -
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines
the final wish
is love.”

Allen Ginsberg book Howl and Other Poems

Source: Howl and Other Poems

Love, Dreams, Angels, Madness

“You will eat this and go to sleep, so your pronouns get their antecedents back.”

Patricia Briggs book Frost Burned

Source: Frost Burned

“I can’t think. I can’t work or sleep. My body aches for you. I can make you want me again. Let me try.”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Source: Bared to You

Thinking

“There was a DJ who stayed up for eleven days straight, the longest recorded period of time anyone has ever gone without sleep, and he started playing nothing by Phil Collins, and that's how they knew it was time to call the ambulance.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Time

“but it's not safe and I can feel him slipping away, so I just get out one more sentence. "Stay with me."
As the tendrils of sleep syrup pull me down, I hear him whisper a word back but I don't catch it.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Feeling

“For years now, I've wanted to fall asleep. The sort of slipping off, the giving up, the falling part of sleep. Now sleeping is the last thing I want to do.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Parting

“Who knew that listening to a guy sleep could be so much deeper than sleeping with a guy.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

Guy

“Many seek and never see,
anyone can tell them why.
O they weep and O they cry
and never take until they try
unless they try it in their sleep
and never some until they die.
I ask many, they ask me.
This is a great mystery.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Source: Collected Poems 1947-1997

Cry

“If the afterlife really is a big war,” Kaladin said, “then I hope I end up in Damnation. At least there I might be able to get a wink or two of sleep.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

War, Hope

“I will sleep no more but arise, You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

Feeling

“Endeavoring to purchase something we think beautiful may in fact be the most unimaginative way of dealing with the longing it excites in us, just as trying to sleep with someone may be the bluntest response to a feeling of love.”

Alain de Botton book The Architecture of Happiness

Source: The Architecture of Happiness

Love, Beauty, Way, Feeling

“Young people are moving away from feeling guilty about sleeping with somebody to feeling guilty if they are *not* sleeping with someone.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

People, Feeling

“Lo, sleep is good, better is death--in sooth
The best of all were never to be born.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

Death

“It will rain all this night and we will sleep transfixed by the dark water as our blood runs through our fragile life.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Life, Water, Night

“One of the Georges - I forget which - once said that a certain number of hours' sleep each night - I cannot recall at the moment how many - made a man something which for the time being has slipped my memory.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Source: Mike and Psmith

Memory, Time, Night, Forgetting

“When I can't sleep I count the buckles on my straightjacket.”

Cathie Linz (1954–2015) American writer

Source: Bad Girls Don't

“So therefore I dedicate myself, to my art, my sleep, my dreams, my labors, my suffrances, my loneliness, my unique madness, my endless absorption and hunger because I cannot dedicate myself to any fellow being.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Hunger, Dreams, Art, Loneliness

“I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Travel, Night

“When I was supposed to be awake, I was asleep. When I was supposed to sleep, I was silent. When a pleasure offered itself to me, I avoided it.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted

Pleasure

“Who wants that? I'd rather choose to fall in love and be hurt. Sometimes I can't even sleep because I love someone too much. And there's always sadness in our lives. It's that sad feeling that keeps us going. - Usagi/Sailor Moon”

Naoko Takeuchi (1967) Japanese manga artist

Source: Sailor Moon, Vol. 1

Love, Sadness, Feeling, Hurt

“We breathe, sleep, drink, eat, work and then die! The end of life is death. What do you long for? Love? A few kisses and you will be powerless. Money? What for? To gratify your desires. Glory? What coems after it all? Death! Death alone is certain.”

Guy De Maupassant Bel-Ami

Source: Bel-Ami

Love, Life, Death, Money

“No rest without love,
no sleep without dreams of love-
be mad or chill obsessed with angels or machines,
the final wish is love
-cannot be bitter, cannot deny,
cannot withhold if denied: the weight is too heavy”

Allen Ginsberg book Howl and Other Poems

Source: Howl and Other Poems

Love, Dreams, Angels, Madness

“There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Hell

“I will find you," Ragnor told him. "I will find whatever chest of absurd clothes you have. And I will bring a llama into the place where you sleep and make sure that it urinates on everything you possess.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What Really Happened in Peru

Clothes

“Most men are not wicked… They are sleep-walkers, not evil evildoers.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Men, Evil

“Maybe you don't need beauty sleep, but some of us aren't so lucky.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Beauty

“Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Variant: Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.
Source: Factotum

Life, World, Clothes

“Morning's great that way. You can cry yourself to sleep and wake up wondering what the fuss was over.”

Terri Farley (1950) American writer

Source: Seven Tears Into the Sea

Way, Cry

“Sometimes I wish I had never met you, because then I could go to sleep at night not knowing there was someone like you out there.”

Gus Van Sant (1952) American film director, producer, photographer and musician

Source: Good Will Hunting

Cute, Night

“Not daring to flee since my general location has just been broadcast to any killer who cares. I mean, I know it's cold out here and not everybody has a sleeping bag.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“breathing, sleeping, drinking, eating, working, dreaming, everything we do is dying. to live, in fact, is to die.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

Dreams, Drink

“The old tale of Sleeping Beauty might end happily in French or English, but he was in Russia, and only a fool would want to live through the Russian version of any fairy tale.”

Orson Scott Card Enchantment

Source: Enchantment

Beauty, Fools

“The man was allergic to sleep.”

Scott Westerfeld book Leviathan

Source: Leviathan

“A year here and he still dreamed of cyberspace, hope fading nightly. All the speed he took, all the turns he'd taken and the corners he'd cut in Night City, and he'd still see the matrix in his sleep, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless void…”

William Gibson book Neuromancer

Source: Neuromancer (1984)
Context: A year here and he still dreamed of cyberspace, hope fading nightly. All the speed he took, all the turns he'd taken and the corners he'd cut in Night City, and he'd still see the matrix in his sleep, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless void… The Sprawl was a long strange way home over the Pacific now, and he was no console man, no cyberspace cowboy. Just another hustler, trying to make it through. But the dreams came on in the Japanese night like livewire voodoo, and he'd cry for it, cry in his sleep, and wake alone in the dark, curled in his capsule in some coffin hotel, his hands clawed into the bedslab, temperfoam bunched between his fingers, trying to reach the console that wasn't there.

Dreams, Hope, Speed, Night

“Sleep is not on good terms with broken hearts. It will have nothing to do with them.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Heart

“So how was it?" she asked. "Kissing Curran?"
"I can't let him kiss me again, because if he does, I'll sleep with him."
Andrea blinked. "Well," she said finally, "At least you know where you stand.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Kiss