Quotes about breath
page 3

“It's nothing really. It's the unique presentation that makes me look good in the action scenes. Why did I dare do them? That's a funny question! Why do I act? Why do I breathe!”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

Question

“Plants are Children of the Earth; we are Children of the Æther. Our Lungs are properly our Root; we live, when we breathe; we begin our life with breathing.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

Novalis (1829)

Life, Children

“Test every work of intellect or faith,
And everything that your own hands have wrought
And call those works extravagance of breath
That are not suited for such men as come
Proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

III, st. 2 The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), Vacillation http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1751/

Men, Faith

“Crying amid the glittering sea,
Naming it with the ecstatic breath,
Because it had such dignity,
By the sweet name of Death.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

His Dream http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1509/ The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910) Context: I swayed upon the gaudy stern The butt-end of a steering-oar, And saw wherever I could turn A crowd upon a shore. And though I would have hushed the crowd, There was no mother's son but said, 'What is the figure in a shroud Upon a gaudy bed?' And after running at the brim Cried out upon that thing beneath --It had such dignity of a limb-- By the sweet name of Death. Though I'd my finger on my lip, What could I but take up the song? And running crowd and gaudy ship Cried out the whole night long, Crying amid the glittering sea, Naming it with the ecstatic breath, Because it had such dignity, By the sweet name of Death.

Death, Cry, Sea

“The outlet for my work is not just the music and the videos, it's every breathing moment of my life. I'm always saying something about art and music and fame.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

The world goes crazy for Lady Gaga (2009)
Context: I don't want to see Bowie in a tracksuit. He never let anyone see him that way. The outlet for my work is not just the music and the videos, it's every breathing moment of my life. I'm always saying something about art and music and fame. That's why you don't ever catch me in sweatpants.

Life, Art, Music

“A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

An Irish Airman Forsees His Death http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1441/ The Wild Swans at Coole (1919) Context: I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My county is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.

Life, Death

“Thus shall he prosper, every day's success
Adding, to what is he, a solid strength —
An aery might to what encircles him,
Till at the last, so life's routine lends help,
That as the Emperor only breathes and moves,
His shadow shall be watched, his step or stalk
Become a comfort or a portent, how
He trails his ermine take significance, —
Till even his power shall cease to be most power,
And men shall dread his weakness more, nor dare
Peril their earth its bravest, first and best,
Its typified invincibility.”

Robert Browning Colombe's Birthday

Valence of Prince Berthold, in Act IV.
Colombe's Birthday (1844)
Context: p>He gathers earth's whole good into his arms;
Standing, as man now, stately, strong and wise,
Marching to fortune, not surprised by her.
One great aim, like a guiding-star, above—
Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift
His manhood to the height that takes the prize;
A prize not near — lest overlooking earth
He rashly spring to seize it — nor remote,
So that he rest upon his path content:
But day by day, while shimmering grows shine,
And the faint circlet prophesies the orb,
He sees so much as, just evolving these,
The stateliness, the wisdom and the strength,
To due completion, will suffice this life,
And lead him at his grandest to the grave.
After this star, out of a night he springs;
A beggar's cradle for the throne of thrones
He quits; so, mounting, feels each step he mounts,
Nor, as from each to each exultingly
He passes, overleaps one grade of joy.
This, for his own good: — with the world, each gift
Of God and man, — reality, tradition,
Fancy and fact — so well environ him,
That as a mystic panoply they serve —
Of force, untenanted, to awe mankind,
And work his purpose out with half the world,
While he, their master, dexterously slipt
From such encumbrance, is meantime employed
With his own prowess on the other half.
Thus shall he prosper, every day's success
Adding, to what is he, a solid strength —
An aery might to what encircles him,
Till at the last, so life's routine lends help,
That as the Emperor only breathes and moves,
His shadow shall be watched, his step or stalk
Become a comfort or a portent, how
He trails his ermine take significance, —
Till even his power shall cease to be most power,
And men shall dread his weakness more, nor dare
Peril their earth its bravest, first and best,
Its typified invincibility.Thus shall he go on, greatening, till he ends—
The man of men, the spirit of all flesh,
The fiery centre of an earthly world!</p

Life, Men, Success, Help

“Come near, come near, come near — Ah, leave me still
A little space for the rose-breath to fill!”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time
The Rose (1893)
Context: Come near, come near, come near — Ah, leave me still
A little space for the rose-breath to fill!
Lest I no more hear common things that crave;
The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,
The field-mouse running by me in the grass,
And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;
But seek alone to hear the strange things said
By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,
And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know.
Come near; I would, before my time to go,
Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.

“He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive, and he said mine would be drunk; I said I should fall asleep in his, and he said he could not breathe in mine.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Catherine Linton (Ch. XXIV).
Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: One time, however, we were near quarrelling. He said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly. That was his most perfect idea of heaven's happiness — mine was rocking in a rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds flitting rapidly above; and not only larks, but throstles, and blackbirds, and linnets, and cuckoos pouring out music on every side, and the moors seen at a distance, broken into cool dusky dells; but close by great swells of long grass undulating in waves to the breeze; and woods and sounding water, and the whole world awake and wild with joy. He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive, and he said mine would be drunk; I said I should fall asleep in his, and he said he could not breathe in mine.

Lie, Peace, Dance

“Our Red Army now needs IL-2 aircraft like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Telegram to government aviation production plant superintendents by Stalin in the autumn of 1941, warning them to produce more Il-2 Sturmovik ground attack aircraft for national defense.

Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Context: You have let down our country and our Red Army. You have the nerve not to manufacture IL-2s until now. Our Red Army now needs IL-2 aircraft like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats. Shenkman produces one IL-2 a day and Tretyakov builds one or two MiG-3s daily. It is a mockery of our country and the Red Army. I ask you not to try the government's patience, and demand that you manufacture more ILs. This is my final warning.

“Listen intently to a voice singing without words. It may charm you into crying, force you to dance, fill you with rage, or make you jump for joy. You can't tell where the music ends and the emotions begin, for the whole thing is a kind of music—the voice playing on your nerves as the breath plays on a flute. All experience is just that, except that its music has many more dimensions than sound. It vibrates in the dimensions of sight, touch, taste, and smell, and in the intellectual dimension of symbols and words—all evoking and playing upon each other.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 95

Music, Rage, Singing, Joy

“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts not breaths; // In feelings, not in figures on a dial. // We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives // Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

This is actually from the poem "We live in deeds..." by Philip James Bailey. This explains the strange pattern of capitalization.
Misattributed

Feeling, Thinking, Time, Heart

“No man can draw a free breath who does not share with other men a common and disinterested ideal. Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator

Source: Terre des Hommes (1939), Ch. IX Barcelona and Madrid (1936)
Context: No man can draw a free breath who does not share with other men a common and disinterested ideal. Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction. There is no comradeship except through union in the same high effort. Even in our age of material well-being this must be so, else how should we explain the happiness we feel in sharing our last crust with others in the desert? No sociologist's textbook can prevail against this fact. Every pilot who has flown to the rescue of a comrade in distress knows that all joys are vain in comparison with this one. And this, it may be, is the reason why the world today is tumbling about our ears. It is precisely because this sort of fulfilment is promised each of us by his religion, that men are inflamed today. All of us, in words that contradict each other, express at bottom the same exalted impulse. What sets us against one another is not our aims — they all come to the same thing — but our methods, which are the fruit of our varied reasoning.
Let us, then, refrain from astonishment at what men do. One man finds that his essential manhood comes alive at the sight of self-sacrifice, cooperative effort, a rigorous vision of justice, manifested in an anarchist's cellar in Barcelona. For that man there will henceforth be but one truth — the truth of the anarchists. Another, having once mounted guard over a flock of terrified little nuns kneeling in a Spanish nunnery, will thereafter know a different truth — that it is sweet to die for the Church. If, when Mermoz plunged into the Chilean Andes with victory in his heart, you had protested to him that no merchant's letter could possibly be worth risking one's life for, Mermoz would have laughed in your face. Truth is the man that was born in Mermoz when he slipped through the Andean passes.

Love, Life, Men, Drawing

“The Soviet Union in Europe and Asia stands today a continuing challenge to the tottering capitalism of the western world. While trade depression and slump and unemployment and repeated crises paralyse capitalism, and the old order gasps for breath, the Soviet Union is a land full of hope and energy and enthusiasm, feverishly building away and establishing the socialist order. And this abounding youth and life, and the success the Soviet Union has already achieved, are impressing and attracting thinking people all over the world.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

Life, People, Youth, World

“Stars scattered everywhere,
tell stories from ancient times
their breathing connects
the earth and heaven and dreams are born,
to the forbidden abyss of infinity
silently a flower blooms.”

alexis karpouzos

mystic poetry and spirituality

Dreams, Star, Flowers, Time

“It covers your shame, keeps you from shivering.
Grass and water are the food it asks.
Who taught you, priest-man,
to feed this breathing thing to your thing of stone?”

Lalleshwari (1320–1392) Indian writer, mystic and saint

The Poems of Lal Ded, poem 59, p. 15
Poetry

Food, Grass, Water

“Music needs room to breathe.”

Ennio Morricone (1928–2020) Italian composer, orchestrator and conductor

Music

“I want, when they see me, They know that everyday when I'm breathing is for us to go further. Everytime I speak I want the truth to come out. Not one person even realizes that I have white relatives, my cousin just had a son who is “White” but everytime I speak I want a shiver so yes, I do omit things that I feel are not accurately portraying my “character.””

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

I don't want them to be like; they know what I'm gonna say, because it's polite. Im not saying I'm gonna rule the world or I'm gonna change the world, but I guarantee you that I will spark the brain that will change the world. And that's our job, It's to spark somebody else watching us. We might not be the one's, but let's not be selfish and because we not gonna change the world let's not talk about how we should change it. I don't know how to change it, but I know if I keep talking about how dirty it is out here, somebody's gonna clean it up.
1990s, MTV interview (1994)

Truth, Feeling, Personality

“The kind of batting that he has got when he is on song, he just takes your breath away.”

Sanju Samson (1994) Indian cricketer

About him Source: Sanjay Manjrekar on Samson's batting. Samson takes your breath away- Sanjay Manjrekar https://www.indiatvnews.com/sports/cricket/pant-wins-you-games-in-10-minutes-samson-takes-your-breath-away-sanjay-manjrekar-641243

“Fashion is the thing! The thing you can put on confidently. And at least you can breathe with comfort.”

Salman Aziz (1993) Bangladeshi independent author and artist

Sources:
https://everydaypower.com/fashion-quotes/
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8897547-fashion-is-the-thing-the-thing-you-can-put-on
https://www.quoteambition.com/fashion-quotes/
https://allauthor.com/quotes/341306/
https://www.have-clothes-will-travel.com/fashion-quotes-instagram-caption/

Confidence, Fashion

“Some say ‘Man is what he eats’ and some say ‘A man’s thinking determines his character’. It might be even more true to say ‘A man’s life and character are governed by his breathing’! This is because a person can neither digest what he eats nor act up to his ideas unless his breathing qualifies him to do so.”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter XV The Essential Science of Breathing, p. 101

Life, Idea, Thinking, Personality

“He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

God, Girl, Star, Flowers

“This world, the whole of the planet called earth, is the common country of all who live and breathe upon it.”

Desiderius Erasmus The Complaint of Peace

The Complaint of Peace (1521)

World, Country

“Life is a dialogue between love and the dust,
but there's a deeper death than death,
this is death, when the love, departs,
Each drop of blood is a starry song
and our souls are breaths of eternity.
In the end the buds returning to the tree.
The tree cares for us.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://twitter.com/AKarpouzos/status/1607014795051687936

Love, Life, Death, Soul

“Nature is the greatest healer, by reconnecting back to nature, we begin changing the world all around us. We begin living from the inside out, breathing in the beautiful 'Chi,' becoming peaceful, developing serenity within ourselves, and that will make this planet a much more harmonious place to live in.”

Ralph Smart

World, Peace, Beauty, Nature

This quote waiting for review.

“In Guadalajara, those who have never waited for a bus under the sun, who have never breathed the heavy air of a public hospital nor reached out to the government for help, raise their hands to decide for you.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: 1480 AM Rock&Pop. Guadalajara, Mexico.

Waiting, Sun, Help

“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

Page 15

Life

“Hold your horses. I'm coming."…
"From where I'm standing you're just breathing laboriously."
The snow swam out of focus. "Breathing hard. Are you coming or just breathing hard. You've got to get your one-liners straight.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Horse

“Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“She had
become so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like the
air he breathed--necessary but scarcely noticed.”

O. Henry (1862–1910) American short story writer

Source: The Complete Life of John Hopkins

Life

“It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what.”

John Galsworthy book The Forsyte Saga

Source: The Forsyte Saga

Pain, Spring, Grass

“What now? (Shahara)
I’m thinking. (Syn)
Could you think a little quicker? (Shahara)
You’re not helping. (Syn)
You’re lucky you’re still breathing and not limping. (Shahara)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Fire

Thinking, Help

“How could you let yourself be sidetracked while I was waiting for your breath on my back?”

Anna Gavalda book I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere

Source: I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere

Waiting

“For, in the final analysis, our most common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.”

John F. Kennedy book Profiles in Courage

1963, American University speech
Variant: For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal.
Source: Profiles in Courage
Context: In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours — and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest. So, let us not be blind to our differences — but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

Children, Future

“I do my job like I breathe — so if I can’t breathe I’m in trouble.”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

“You have a choice. Live or die.
Every breath is a choice.
Every minute is a choice.
Every time you don't throw yourself down the stairs, that's a choice. Every time you don't crash your car, you re-enlist.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Variant: Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be. Every time you don't throw yourself down the stairs, that's a choice. Every time you don't crash your car, you re-enlist.
Source: Survivor

Cars, Time

“I think the important thing to remember is that all relationships benefit from a bit of breathing room. Especially friendships. It's only when you find yourself without the women who understand you that you realize there are very few women who will.”

Megan Crane (1973) American novelist

Source: Frenemies

Women, Friendship, Understanding, Thinking

“What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Art

“She already felt dead in everything but name. What remained to be taken from her? She longed to be enfolded, welcomed, into the earth - to breathe no more, love no more, hurt no more”

Alan Brennert (1954) American writer

Source: Moloka'i

Love, Hurt, Dead

“Which meant his only assets were one whiny imprisoned goddess, one sort-of-girlfriend with a dagger, and Leo, who apparently thought he could defeat the armies of darkness with breath mints.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

“You say my name like a lover, so soft, so sweet. I want to lick the word from your lips, sip the exhaled breath from your mouth. I want to possess you utterly. Right now. Right here.”

Elizabeth Hoyt (1970) American writer

Source: Notorious Pleasures

Lovers

“There was her face, like a summer peach, beautiful and warm, and the light of the candles reflected in her dark eyes. [He] held his breath. The entire world waited and held its breath.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

World, Beauty, Light, Waiting

“I heard a sigh, as though the books were breathing. I felt that this was where I belonged. This was where I lived.”

Alice Hoffman book The Ice Queen

Source: The Ice Queen

Books

“Sometimes I would open my eyes when we were kissing, I would watch him and I could see it. I could actually see LOVE - not words, not an emotion, not an abstract concept or a subjective state of mind, but a living, breathing thing.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Love, Kiss

“I will bathe in your warmth ma petite. Roll you around me until my heart beats only for you. My breath will grow warm from your kiss.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Burnt Offerings

Source: Burnt Offerings

Kiss, Heart

“I nearly always write just as I nearly always breathe.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

“They're on their way to the foreign-language wing. That's no surprise. The foreign kids are always here, like they need to breathe air scented with their native language a couple times a day or they'll choke to death on too much American.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Death, Way, Time

“We breathe in our first language, and swim in our second.”

Adam Gopnik book Paris to the Moon

Source: Paris to the Moon

“Ian Kabra rolled up his window. "My god, what's that smell?"
Behind the wheel, Sinead laughed. "It's called fresh air. Growing up in London, you've probably never breathed it before."
"And I hope I never breathe it again.”

Gordon Korman book The Medusa Plot

Source: The Medusa Plot

God, Hope

“It is the act of reading itself that I miss, the opportunity to retreat further and further from the world until I have found some space, some air that isn't stale, that hasn't been breathed by my family a thousand times already.”

Nick Hornby book How to Be Good

Source: How to Be Good

World, Family, Time, Reading

“Almost Beyond:
She laid on my chest & her breathing filled me almost to beyond what I could hold.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

Feeling

“Self pity becomes your oxygen. But you learned to breathe it without a gasp. So, nobody even notices you're hurting.”

Paul Monette (1945–1995) American writer

Learning, Hurt

“You are the pinch in my heart. The catch in my breath. The reason my stomach tumbles…”

Rachel Gibson (1961) American writer

Source: Any Man of Mine

Heart

“I been watchin' you, workin day and night, slavin so hard you barely have time to catch your breath. People do that for three reasons. Either they crazy, or stupid, or tryin' to forget.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

People, Stupidity, Time, Night

“She squeezed my hand, and I drew a shaky breath, marveling at the fact that while on an ordinary leave in an ordinary place, I'd somehow fallen in love with an extraordinary girl named Savannaah Lynn Curtis.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Love, Girl

“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live. She read books as one would breathe ether, to sink in and die.”

Annie Dillard book The Living

Source: The Living

Books, Reading

“When I turn around, he cups my face in his hands and he kisses me so deeply that I don't know who is breathing for who, but his mouth and tongue taste like warm honey. I don't know how long it lasts, but when I let go of him, I miss it already.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Kiss

“All she wanted was a breathing space in which to hurt.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Hurt

“At the door, Audrey called, "Are you coming?"
"No, just breathing hard, love." He glanced at her and was rewarded by an outraged glare, followed by, "Oh, my God!”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Fate's Edge

Love, God

“At that moment I was sure. That I belonged in my skin. That my organs were mine and my eyes were mine and my ears, which could only hear the silence of this night and my faint breathing, were mine, and I loved them and what they could do.”

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

Love, Silence, Night

“Luke's left side was bloody. His eyes were open—blue eyes, the way they used to be. His breath was a deep rattle. "Good… blade," he croaked.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

Way

“I remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove she was moving too,
And every single breath that we drew was
Hallelujah.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"Hallelujah"
Various Positions (1984)

“Any problems with your flight? (Acheron)
I didn’t eat my pilot if that’s what you mean. And little Nicky here is still breathing and not bleeding. (Zarek)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

Problem

“We must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing.”

Hélène Cixous (1937) French philosopher and writer

Falseness

“To Scarlett, there was something breath-taking about Ellen O'Hara, a miracle that lived in the house with her and awed her and charmed and soothed her.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Housing

“He lives.
I breathe.
I want. Him. Always.
Fire to my ice. Ice to my fever.
-Mac”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

“I’ve got your back. Nothing alive will ever hurt you if I have breath in me. And nothing dead will hurt you if I don’t.” (Kisten)”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: For a Few Demons More

Hurt, Dead

“Once time is lit, it will burn whether or not you're breathing it in. Even after smoke becomes air, there is the memory of smoke. I am seeing as if by the light of a match, a glimpse of my life and having it feel right.”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

Life, Feeling, Light, Memory

“How you die out in me:

down to the last
worn-out
knot of breath
you're there, with a
splinter
of life.”

Paul Celan (1920–1970) Romanian poet and translator

Source: Poems of Paul Celan

Life

“are you breathing, are you lucky enough
to be breathing”

Hettie Jones (1934) American writer

“It was the darkness that got you. It was heavy darkness, greasy and compelling. It made walls round you, and shut you in so that you felt like you could not breathe.”

Jean Rhys (1890–1979) novelist from Dominica

Source: After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie

“To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.”

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet

Source: The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography

Travel, Flying

“Don’t move, and breathe only if you have to. (Caleb)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

“elliptical, adj.
The kiss I like the most is one of the slow ones. It’s as much breath as touch, as much no as yes. You lean in from the side, and I have to turn a little to make it happen.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Kiss

“If I'd had enough breath, I would have screamed, both at the sensation and at the sheer pettiness of the bastard who wouldn't allow me even a tiny chance of escape.”

Karen Chance book Touch the Dark

Source: Touch the Dark

Chance

“Help me, I can’t breathe, your ego is pushing all the air out of the room.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

Help

“It is not possible to control the outside of yourself until you have mastered your breathing space. It is not possible to change anything until you understand the substance you wish to change.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Understanding, Change

“Do you think I don't want him to be gone more than you do? I do. Because I need to know that I can still breathe properly when he's not around. If something happens to him, I have to know that I won't fall apart…”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Thinking

“It will take all your heart, it will take all your breath
It will be short, it will not be simple”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Heart

“I would remain nearer you for what time there is."

"Gone in one faerie sigh," she quoted.

Leather-clad fingers brushed over her short hair, rested on her cheek. "I can hold my breath.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Valiant

Quotes, Time

“Were you listening to a word I said '
'I kind of switched off when you drew breath.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Source: Shades of Grey

“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

Light, Heart, Drawing

“Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.”

Michael Crichton book The Lost World

Seventh Configuration "Departure"
Source: The Lost World (1995)
Context: A hundred years from now, people will look back on us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer and better fantasies. And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. You see all of us together? That's real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.

Life, Sun

“Remember to breathe. It is after all, the secret of life.”

Gregory Maguire book A Lion Among Men

Source: A Lion Among Men

Life, Secret