Quotes about dark
page 13

“Felicity and I watch the dancers moving as one. They spin about like the earth on it's axis, enduring the dark, waiting for the sun.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Waiting, Sun

“With their hands clasped like children in a fairy tale, she fell asleep beside him in the dark.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Children

“Into the dark night
Resignedly I go,
I am not so afraid of the dark night
As the friends I do not know,
I do not fear the night above
As I fear the friends below.”

Stevie Smith (1902–1971) poet, novelist, illustrator, performer

Source: Selected Poems

Fear, Night

“It seems to leave the darkness rather blacker than before.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Hound of the Baskervilles

Source: The Hound of the Baskervilles

“Long, dark, and lovely she had been, in those days before her mind broke and the parts scattered and she let them go.”

Daniel Woodrell (1953) Novelist

Source: Winter's Bone

Love, Parting

“Over this odd world, this half the world that's dark now, I have to hunt a thing that lives on tears.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

World, Tear

“It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive. It has come to a standstill; nothing withers, and fall is not ready to begin. There are no stars yet, just darkness.”

Tove Jansson book The Summer Book

Source: The Summer Book

Star, Summer

“His love for her was a gift he gave her daily, expecting nothing in return. He walked at her side, his love for her a torch to guide her footsteps along the dark path she walked.”

Margaret Weis book Dragons of a Fallen Sun

Source: Dragons of a Fallen Sun

Love

“Walk with care in dark places, and do not put your faith in anyone who promises you the forgiveness of the Lord or a certain place in Paradise.”

Clive Barker book Mister B. Gone

Source: Mister B. Gone

Faith, Forgiveness

“It is only the darkness in our own hearts that will defeat us, in the end.”

Alison Croggon book The Crow

Source: The Crow

Heart

“You have a dark heart in you, Valentine’s daughter,” he said. “You just won’t admit it. And if you want Jace, you had better accept it. Because he belongs to me now.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Heart, Daughters

“To make great art, you had to expose your soul, and some things should be left safely in the dark.”

Patricia Briggs book Hunting Ground

Source: Hunting Ground

Art, Soul

“Our achievements may make us interesting, Tyler, but our darkness makes us lovable.”

Douglas Coupland book Shampoo Planet

Source: Shampoo Planet

“Has anybody ever seen a drama critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out after dark, up to no good.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Adventures of Sally

The Adventures of Sally (1922)

“Who’ll come lie down in the dark with me
Belly to belly and knee to knee
Who’ll look into my hooded eye
Who’ll lie down under my darkened thigh?”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Source: Collected Poems 1947-1997

Lie

“At times God puts us through the discipline of darkness to teach us to heed Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and we are put into the shadow of God’s hand until we learn to hear Him.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

Source: My Utmost for His Highest: Traditional Updated Edition

God, Bird, Learning, Singing

“And starward drifts the stricken world,
Lone in unalterable gloom
Dead, with a universe for tomb,
Dark, and to vaster darkness whirled.
(“The Testimony of the Suns”)”

George Sterling (1869–1926) American poet and playwright

Source: The Thirst of Satan: Poems of Fantasy and Terror

World, Universe, Sun, Dead

“Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke.”

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

Love, God

“A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he'll never crow. I have seen the light and I'm crowing.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

Light

“What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney?”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

Truth

“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.”

George Gordon Byron book Hebrew Melodies

She Walks in Beauty http://readytogoebooks.com/LB-SWB42.htm, st. 1. The subject of these lines was Mrs. R. Wilmot.—Berry Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 7. <br class="br">Hebrew Melodies (1815)

Beauty, Light, Night

“Barrons." I hastily shoved the phone between the cushions.

Ms. Lane." He inclined his dark head.

You tattooed me, you bastard." I got right to the point.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

Tattoo

“Upon him I will visit famine and a fire.
Till all around him desolation rings
And all the demons in the outer dark
Look on amazed and recognize
That vengeance is the business of a man.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 43, “The Flickering Way” (p. 323)

Business

“The seconds tick. They always do. The power of an entire sun cannot stop them even for a moment, and so death comes between the moments, like a thief of light in the dark.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: Black Blood

Death, Light, Sun

“There is a way to master silence
Control its curves, inhabit its dark corners
And listen to the hiss of time outside”

Paul Bowles (1910–1999) American composer, writer, translator

Way, Silence, Time

“My stomach churned. The monster had mimicked Thalia perfectly. If I'd heard that voice in the dark, calling for help, I would've run straight toward it.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Diaries

Source: The Demigod Diaries

Help

“War is not heroic. War is not exhilarating. War is full of despair. It is dark. It is dreadful. It is a thing of sorrow and gloom. That is why people fear war. That is why people choose to avoid it.
~Izuru Kira”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

War, People, Fear, Despair

“What I was chasing in circles must have been the tail of the darkness inside me.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: After the Quake

“Say what you will, there is something fine about our old aristocracy. I'll bet Trotsky couldn't hit a moving secretary with an egg on a dark night.”

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

Night

“I kept staring into the blackness of the woods, drawn into the darkness as I always had been. I suddenly realized how alone I was. (But this is how you travel, the wind whispered back, this is how you've always lived.)”

Bret Easton Ellis book Lunar Park

Source: Lunar Park

Travel

“There are things of such darkness and horror—just, I suppose, as there are things of such great beauty—that they will not fit through the puny human doors of perception.”

Stephen King book Skeleton Crew

Source: Skeleton Crew

Beauty

“That's what happens when you fall. Everything that was bright about you becomes dark. As brilliant as you once were, that's how evil you become. It's a long way to fall”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Way, Evil

“Nobody wanted your dance,
Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your floundering
Drowning life and your effort to save yourself,
Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil,
Looking for something to give.”

Ted Hughes Birthday Letters

Source: Birthday Letters

Life, Effort, Water, Dance

“Turn away. From the darkness, the madness, the pain. Open your eyes and look at the light.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

Pain, Light, Madness

“Piece by piece, I fed my wardrobe to the night wind, and flutteringly, like a loved one’s ashes, the gray scraps were ferried off, to settle here, there, exactly where I would never know, in the dark heart of New York.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Love, Heart, Night

“I don’t need to be reminded that we’re up to our heads in dark water. I just want you boys to remember that we’re the gods-damned sharks.”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora

God, Boy, Water

“He wanted to put his arms around her, but she had a darkness that seemed to stand beside her like an acquaintance that would not go away.”

Elizabeth Strout book Olive Kitteridge

Source: Olive Kitteridge

“The water is DEEP AND DARK AND DANGEROUS”

Mary Downing Hahn book Deep and Dark and Dangerous

Source: Deep and Dark and Dangerous

Water

“You are my sunlight in the dark and the ground beneath my feet.”

Kristin Hannah book The Nightingale

Source: The Nightingale

“Weren't we all crazy in our sleep? What was sleep, after all, but the process by which we dumped our insanity into a dark subconscious pit and came out on the other side ready to eat cereal instead of our neighbor's children?”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Children, Sleep

“Love is like the wild rose-briar;
Friendship like the holly-tree.
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms,
But which will bloom most constantly?”

Emily Brontë (1818–1848) English novelist and poet

Love and Friendship
Source: The Complete Poems

Love, Friendship, Tree

“Have you, in truth, ever seen something so heartbreakingly lovely? What are we to make of a world where stars shine bright in the midst of so much darkness and gloom?”

Kate DiCamillo The Magician's Elephant

Source: The Magician's Elephant

Love, Truth, World, Star

“I, while the gods laugh, the world's vortex am;
Maelström of passions in that hidden sea
Whose waves of all-time lap the coasts of me;
And in small compass the dark waters cram.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Source: Collected Poems

God, World, Water, Passion

“Even in darkness it is possible to create light and encourage compassion. That it is possible to feel free inside a prison. That even in exile, friendship exists and can become an anchor. That one instant before dying, man is still immortal.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Source: Open Heart

Friendship, Feeling, Light

“Light does not come from light, but from darkness.”

Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher

Light

“That's what living in their world is-a big lie. An illusion where everyone looks the other way and pretends that nothing unpleasant exists at all, no goblins of the dark, no ghosts of the soul.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Lie, World, Way, Soul

“This horror will grow mild, this darkness light.”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

Source: Paradise Lost

Light

“So, there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias, about to get sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil Librarians.”

Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Source: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Evil

“Perhaps some of us have to go through dark and devious ways before we can find the river of peace or the highroad to the soul's destination.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Source: The Hero With a Thousand Faces

Peace, Way, Soul

“I am an author of Christian Fantasy. My first 7 books were Christian Romance, but I came over to the Dark Side when I heard there were cookies.”

Donita K. Paul (1950) American writer

Books

“Loneliness and darkness have just robbed me of my valuables.”

Sigmund Freud book Introduction to Psychoanalysis

Source: Introduction à la psychanalyse

Loneliness

“The rock, for its part, is not even aware of our existence because we are alive for only a brief instant of its lifespan. To it, we are like flashes in the dark.”

Michael Crichton book The Andromeda Strain

Source: The Andromeda Strain

Parting

“Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it."

[Q&A with Larry McCaffery,, Summer 1993, Vol. 13.2]”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

World, Way, Summer

“I dont hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I dont. I dont! I dont hate it! I dont hate it!”

William Faulkner book Absalom, Absalom!

The Mansion (1959)
Source: Absalom, Absalom!
Context: Or maybe married men dont even need reasons, being as they already got wives. Or maybe it's women that dont need reasons, for the simple reason that they never heard of a reason and wouldn't recognise it face to face, since they dont function from reasons but from necessities that couldn't nobody help nohow and that dont nobody but a fool man want to help in the second place, because he dont know no better; it aint women, it's men that takes ignorance seriously, getting into a skeer [scare] over something for no more reason than that they dont happen to know what it is.

V. K. Ratliff in Ch. 6

Hate

“They lay there for a few seconds, in the dark, in the future, listening to the fabulous clockwork of their hearts and lungs, and loving each other”

Michael Chabon book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Source: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Love, Future, Heart

“Who's there?' he called, then frowned. 'Of course,' he added, addressing the darkness all around, 'even I, as a Shadowhunter, have seen enough movies to know that anyone who yells 'Who's there?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

is going to be instantly killed.'"
Jace Herondale, pg. 442
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

“You have begun to separate the dark from the dark.”

Philip Levine (1928–2015) Poet

“The people dreamed and fought and slept as much as ever. And by habit they shortened their thoughts so that they would not wander out into the darkness beyond tomorrow.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

People, Dreams

“The glue of mutual need that bonded us so tightly together for all those years is melting away. Dark patches, not light, show in the spaces between us.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Light

“Yes, I know it.
In the darkness of my dark beating heart,
I know. He'd have loved it alright.
You see?
Even Death Has A Heart.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Love, Death, Heart

“But the warriors true, the brave of heart
Who valiently upheld the right
They are raised on high to the velvet sky
Bringing light to the darkness of night”

Brian Jacques (1939–2011) British fiction writer known for Redwall animal fantasy novels

Light, Heart, Night

“If I looked in the mirror someday and saw no dark circles under my eyes, I would probably look better. I just wouldn't look like me.”

Sarah Vowell book Take the Cannoli

Source: Take the Cannoli

“The world, although well-lighted with fluorescents and incandescent bulbs and neon, is still full of odd dark corners and unsettling nooks and crannies.”

Stephen King book Firestarter

Source: Firestarter

World, Light

“The continuous narrative of existence is a lie. There is no continuous narrative, there are lit-up moments, and the rest is dark.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Lie

“It's a GIRL.
It's a little girl, with scrunched-up petal lips and a tuft of dark hair and hands in tiny fits, up by her ears. All that time, that's who was in there. And it's weird, but the minute I saw her I just thought: IT'S YOU. Of course it is.”

Sophie Kinsella (1969) British writer

Source: Shopaholic & Baby

Girl, Time

“They're a dark people with a gift for suffering way past their deserving. It's said that without whiskey to soak and soften the world, they'd kill themselves. (Irish)”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

People, World, Way, Suffering

“I am a demon hunter. Clearly, I am not afraid of the dark.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

“And I hope she does not live in a dark world. Because even the most terrible loss doesn't have to make you darker; it can make you deeper.”

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.

World, Hope, Loss