Quotes about the sun
page 6

“The time has come, everybody lie down so you won't get hurt when the sun bursts.”

Neal Cassady (1926–1968) American cultural figure of 1950s and 1960s

Source: First Third & Other Writings - Revised & Expanded Edition Together With A New Prologue

“Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: “People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

People, Beauty, Light

“i can't understand her"
well son, you might as well try to understand the sun”

Robert Jordan The Fires of Heaven

Source: The Fires of Heaven

Understanding

“… it is, after all, not necessary to fly right into the middle of the sun, but it is necessary to crawl to a clean little spot on Earth where the sun sometimes shines and one can warm oneself a little.”

Franz Kafka Letter to His Father

Source: Letter to His Father

Flying

“Sun is bad for you. Everything our parents said was good is bad. Sun, milk, red meat… college”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Parent

“I wished that the chains would break and the wind would sweep me up, up, up into the sky, beyond the clouds, beyond the sun and the moon, to some marvelous kingdom where no one ever changed and friends were friends for life.”

Mary Downing Hahn (1937) American children's writer

Source: Daphne's Book

Life, Change

“Jessamine flushed. "Ugh! Charlotte, Will's being vexing."
"And the sun has come up in the east," said Jem to no one in particular.
…
"And the sun comes up in the WEST," said Will, who had apparently heard Jem's earlier comment.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Flowers

“Space echoes like an immense tomb, yet the stars still burn. Why does the sun take so long to die?”

Nick Land (1962) British philosopher

Source: The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism (1992), Chapter 5: "Dead God", p. 60 (original emphasis)
Context: God is nowhere to be found, yet there is still so much light! Light that dazzles and maddens; crisp, ruthless light. Space echoes like an immense tomb, yet the stars still burn. Why does the sun take so long to die? Or the moon retain such fidelity to the Earth? Where is the new darkness? The greatest of all unknowings? Is death itself shy of us?

Star

“Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“Life is a storm. One minute you will bathe under the sun and the next you will be shattered upon the rocks. That's when you shout, "Do your worst, for I will do mine!" and you will be remembered forever.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Life

“This world, it is a tempest sometimes. But remember, the sun always rises again.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

World

“If such a thing had happened once, it must surely have happened many times in this galaxy of a hundred billion suns.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Rendezvous with Rama

Source: Rendezvous with Rama

Time

“If time and space, as sages say,
Are things which cannot be,
The sun which does not feel decay
No greater is than we.
So why, Love, should we ever pray
To live a century?
The butterfly that lives a day
Has lived eternity.”

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

Love, Feeling, Time

“Charlotte, Will’s being
vexing.'
'And the sun has come up in the east,'
said Jem, to no one in particular.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“It is clear that the world is purely parodic, in other words, that each thing seen is the parody of another, or is the same thing in a deceptive form.
Ever since sentences started to circulate in brains devoted to reflection, an effort at total identification has been made, because with the aid of a copula each sentence ties one thing to another; all things would be visibly connected if one could discover at a single glance and in its totality the tracings of Ariadne’s thread leading thought into its own labyrinth.
But the copula of terms is no less irritating than the copulation of bodies. And when I scream I AM THE SUN an integral erection results, because the verb to be is the vehicle of amorous frenzy.
Everyone is aware that life is parodic and that it lacks an interpretation. Thus lead is the parody of gold. Air is the parody of water. The brain is the parody of the equator. Coitus is the parody of crime.”

Georges Bataille book The Solar Anus

The Solar Anus (1927)

Life, World, Effort, Water

“Before going back to sleep I imagined (I saw) a plastic universe, changeable, full of wondrous chance, an elastic sky, a sun that suddenly is missing or remains fixed or changes its shape.”

Julio Cortázar book Hopscotch

Source: Hopscotch

Imagination, Sleep, Universe, Change

“The exceeding brightness of this early sun
Makes me conceive how dark I have become.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Source: The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play

“Sweet mother of chaos," he breathed. "Rachel, you are indeed one of us. Have your time in the sun. You're worth the extra wait.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Black Magic Sanction

Time, Waiting

“Life is a pure flame and we live by an invisible sun within us.”

Thomas Browne (1605–1682) English polymath

Life

“By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

For Mother

“sometimes, when the sun shines, it scorches.”

Melissa de la Cruz (1971) American writer

Source: Sun-Kissed

“Hemingway has his classic moment in "The Sun Also Rises" when someone asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt. All he can say is, "Gradually, then suddenly." That's how depression hits. You wake up one morning, afraid that you're gonna live.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Variant: There is a classic moment in ‘The Sun Also Rises’ when someone asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt, and all he can say in response is, “Gradually and then suddenly.” When someone asks how I lost my mind, that’s all I can say too.
Source: Prozac Nation

“Our relationship wasn't the sun, the moon, the stars, but it wasn't bullshit, either.”

Junot Díaz book This Is How You Lose Her

Source: This Is How You Lose Her

Star

“There's one tiny little gap in the universe left, just about to close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection. I'm in orbit around a supernova. I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye.”

Russell T. Davies (1963) Screenwriter, former executive producer of Doctor Who

Source: Doctor Who: The Shooting Scripts

Universe

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

"The Catholic Sun"

Laughter, Wine

“The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Light

“What breaks in daybreak? Is it the night? Is it the sun, cracked in two by the horizon like an egg, spilling out light?”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Light, Night

“I want to fly! I want to touch the sun!"
"Finish your eggs first.”

Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun

Source: A Raisin in the Sun

Flying

“You seem to think you have a choice," Cam said. "But you have it backwards. Love chooses you. The shadow moves as the sun commands.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Married By Morning

Love, Thinking

“We live in an old chaos of the sun.”

Wallace Stevens book Harmonium

"Sunday Morning"
Harmonium (1923)
Context: We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or an old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Context: We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or an old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

“Wow," Thalia muttered. "Apollo is hot."
"He's the sun god," I said.
"That's not what I meant.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

God

“She died--this was the way she died;
And when her breath was done,
Took up her simple wardrobe
And started for the sun.
Her little figure at the gate
The angels must have spied,
Since I could never find her
Upon the mortal side.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Source: Selected Poems

Angels, Way

“i fear no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows”

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

Source: Selected Poems

Fate, Secret, World, Fear

“Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure
I’d face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 62, st. 3.
Source: A Shropshire Lad (1896)

World, Chance, Training

“she kissed as if she, alone, could forge the signature of the sun”

Saul Williams (1972) American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor

Source: , said the shotgun to the head.

Kiss

“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Ballads and Other Poems

Source: Ballads and Other Poems

Life, Fate, Sadness, Heart

“The sun rose like a stripper, keeping its glory well covered by cloud till it seemed there'd be no show at all.”

Clive Barker book Cabal

Source: Cabal

“You felt a deep sorrow, the kind of melancholy you feel when you're in a beautiful place and the sun is going down”

Thrity Umrigar book The Space Between Us

Source: The Space Between Us

Beauty, Feeling

“The sun gives you ulcers, the wind gives you T. B.
Once you were beautiful.”

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

Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

Beauty

“When you loved me I gave you the whole sun and stars to play with. I gave you eternity in a single moment, strength of the mountains in one clasp of your arms, and the volume of all the seas in one impulse of your soul.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Love, Soul, Mountain, Star

“When pain brings you down, don't be silly, don't close your eyes and cry, you just might be in the best position to see the sun shine.”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

Pain, Cry

“We would oppose the turning of the planet and refuse the setting of the sun.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

Source: You Shall Know Our Velocity!

“My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

God, Hate, Waiting, Heart

“I knit the afternoon away. I knit reasons for Elijah to come back. I knit apologies for Emma. I knit angry knots and slipped stitches for every mistake I ever made, and I knit wet, swollen stitches that look awful. I knit the sun down.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere.”

Isabelle Eberhardt (1877–1904) Swiss explorer and author

Source: The Nomad: The Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt

Life

“The world we suggest is a new wild west. A sensuous evil world. Strange and haunting, the path of the sun…”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

World, Evil

“Surprise me, Atlantean. Attack. This isn’t a dance party. (Takeshi)
You know, this isn’t building my confidence. In fact, I think I’m just going to lie here for a bit and take in some sun. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Lie, Confidence, Thinking, Dance

“Every one of a hundred thousand cities around the world had its own special sunset and it was worth going there, just once, if only to see the sun go down.”

Ryū Murakami book Coin Locker Babies

Source: Coin Locker Babies (1980)

World

“The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house
All that cold, cold, wet day.”

Dr. Seuss book The Cat in the Hat

Source: The Cat in the Hat (1957)

Housing

“I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the colour and fragrance of a flower - the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.”

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

God, Flowers, Light, Silence

“Morning. Strawberry sky dusted with white winter powder sugar sun. And nobody to munch on it with”

Francesca Lia Block Missing Angel Juan

Source: Missing Angel Juan

Winter

“It's not fair to show someone the sun and then banish him from it. Even the devil may cry when he looks around hell and realizes that he's there alone. -Acheron”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Devil May Cry

Hell, Cry

“A ring of gold with the sun in it?
Lies. Lies and a grief.”

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

Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

“This is the world. Half of it is lit by the sun and the other half remains in darkness. It is the same with life. There is good and bad and it's our duty to remain in the light, be good.”

Anita Nair (1966) Indian writer

Life, World, Light

“The sun is nice but it lights things up so much that you can't see very far… The night time is better. It stretches your soul to the stars.”

Fynn (1919–1999) British writer

Source: Mister God, This is Anna

Soul, Star, Light, Time

“Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

Star

“Fortunately, the sun has a wonderfully glorious habit of rising every morning”

Jean Craighead George book My Side of the Mountain

Source: My Side of the Mountain

“I think the sun is a flower,
That blooms for just one hour.”

Ray Bradbury book All Summer in a Day

Source: All Summer in a Day

Flowers, Thinking

“My will broke at the sound of his voice, and my head turned
with as much inevitability as a sunflower turning its face to
the sun.”

Patricia Briggs book Silver Borne

Source: Silver Borne

“Each time I told my story, I lost a bit, the smallest drop of pain. It was that day that I knew I wanted to tell the story of my family. Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Pain, Family, Flowers, Time

“Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.”

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

Variant: Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. It's what the sunflowers do.

Hope

“He grinned at her, and she grinned at him, and it seemed to Maria that suddenly the sun came out.”

Elizabeth Goudge (1900–1984) English fiction writer

“It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum

Life, Laughter

“If you're in the room, I want to be next to you. If you're gone, I think about you. You're who I want to talk to. In a fight, I want you at my back. When we're together the sun is shining. When we're apart, everything is in shades of gray.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Fang

Thinking, Fight

“They were always like two people talking to each other in different languages. But she loved him so much, when he withdrew as he had now done, it was like the warm sun going down and leaving her in chilly twilight dews.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Love, People

“Quiet Prayer:
As long as the sun shall rise goes the old lovers vow. But we are children of a scientific age & have no time for poetry. Still, I offer a quiet prayer of thanks for the sunlight each time I see your face.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Children, Age, Lovers, Time

“He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Pt. I, ch. 9
Variant: He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.
Source: Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

“You're buying years of work, toil in the sun; you're buying a sorrow that can't talk.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

“Happiness is a hound dog in the sun. We aren't on Earth to be happy, but to experience incredible things.

- Hannah Schneider”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

Dogs, Happiness

“To see her is a picture-
To hear her is a tune-
To know her an Intemperance
As innocent as June-
To know her not-Affliction-
To own her for a Friend
A warmth as near as if the the Sun
Were shining in your Hand.”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Affliction

“There has to be a moment when you choose happiness, when you stand up, raise your face towards the sun, and just grab joy and put it in a place where no one can ever take it away from you.”

Kris Radish (1953) American novelist

Source: The Shortest Distance Between Two Women

Joy, Happiness

“One of Us:
Someday, the light will shine like a sun through my skin & they will say, What have you done with your life? & though there are many moments I think I will remember, in the end, I will be proud to say, I was one of us.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Life, Thinking, Light

“Flowers are made to bloom in the sun and not to be shut up in an apron.”

Johanna Spyri book Heidi

Source: Heidi

Flowers

“Then the two friends leaned back and watched the sun rise clear of the trees.
“Best time of day,” said Will.
Yes,” Horace agreed. “What’s for breakfast?”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: Erak's Ransom

Tree, Time

“Saying good night to the mountains, the sun throws his most beautiful rays to them, that they may not forget him till the morning.”

Johanna Spyri book Heidi

Source: Heidi

Beauty, Mountain, Night, Forgetting

“But, true, I’ve wept too much! Dawns break hearts./ Every moon is brutal, every sun bitter.”

Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) French Decadent and Symbolist poet

Variant: But, truly, I have wept too much! The Dawns are heartbreaking. Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter.

Heart

“In a whisper he began begging for—and, as the sun set, received—the concession people always beg for: a little more time.”

Zadie Smith On Beauty

Unspecified edition, p. 398.
Source: On Beauty (2005)

People, Time

“Come away with me, Astrid. (Zarek)
Why should I? (Astrid)
Because I love you, and even if I’m lying on the sun itself I’ll be freezing there without you. I need my star so that I can hear laughter. (Zarek)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

Love, Star, Lying, Laughter

“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair…”

Susan Polis Schutz (1944) American poet

Flowers, Dance

“Before it is science and career, before it is livelihood, before even it is family or love, freedom is sound sleep and safety to notice the play of morning sun.”

Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Source: The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Love, Family, Sleep, Freedom

“I can promise you that the world is a factory. The sun stirs it, the humans rule it. And I remain. I carry them away.- spoken by death”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Death, World

“Never look directly at the sun. Instead, look at the sunflower.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“… The queen's mocking laughter cut in. "is your treasure, Lord Sheftu?"

"Aye. The greatest treasure in Egypt—a maid whose loyalty cannot be bought. Whatever bargain we make, Daughter of the Sun, must include her freedom.”

Eloise Jarvis McGraw book Mara, Daughter of the Nile

Source: Mara, Daughter of the Nile

Laughter, Freedom, Daughters, Loyalty

“Just as your hand has the power to hide the sun, mediocrity has the power to hide your inner light. Do not blame others for your own incompetence.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Warrior of the Light

Light

“Henceforth I will look upon all things with love and I will be born again. I will love the sun for it warms my bones; yet I will love the rain for it cleanses my spirit. I will love the light for it shows me the way; yet I will love the darkness for it shows me the stars.”

Og Mandino book The Greatest Salesman in the World

Source: The Greatest Salesman in the World (1968), Ch. 9 : The Scroll Marked II, p. 59.
Context: Henceforth I will look upon all things with love and I will be born again. I will love the sun for it warms my bones; yet I will love the rain for it cleanses my spirit. I will love the light for it shows me the way; yet I will love the darkness for it shows me the stars. I will welcome happiness because it enlarges my heart; yet I will endure sadness because it opens my soul. I will acknowledge rewards because they are my due; yet I will welcome obstacles because they are my challenge.
I will greet this day with love in my heart.

Love, Way, Star, Light