Fluttering Quotes - Page 4

• When I looked at the painting I felt the same convergence on a single point: a flickering sun-struck instance that existed now and forever. Only occasionally did I notice the chain on the finch's ankle, or think what a cruel life for a little living creature - fluttering briefly, forced always to land in the same hopeless place.

  Donna Tartt

  Thinking, Land, Forever

  "The Goldfinch". Book by Donna Tartt, 2013.

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• Handsome enough' is this Grim Reaper, Who can snuff all these 'brief candles,' every fluttering soul sucking the air, from this hall" -The Vampire Lestat

  Anne Rice

  Air, Soul, Vampire

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• I reach out and grab her wrist. It feels impossibly tiny in my hand, like this one time I found a baby bird near goose Point, and I picked it up and it died there, taking its final gasping fluttering breaths in my palm.

  Lauren Oliver

  Baby, Hands, Bird

  Lauren Oliver (2010). “Before I Fall”, p.203, Hachette UK

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• At times I believed that the last page of my book and the last page of my life were one and the same, that when my book ended I'd end, a great wind would sweep through my rooms carrying the pages away, and when the air cleared of all those fluttering white sheets the room would be silent, the chair where I sat empty.

  Nicole Krauss

  Book, Writing, White

  Nicole Krauss (2006). “The History of Love: A Novel”, p.9, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Now hollow fires burn out to black,
  And lights are fluttering low:
  Square your shoulders, lift your pack
  And leave your friends and go.
  O never fear, lads, naught's to dread,
  Look not to left nor right:
  In all the endless road you tread
  There's nothing but the night.

  Alexander Pope

  Fear, Night, Fire

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• And whether this happiness lasted a hundred seconds or ten minutes, it was so far removed from time that it resembled every other genuine happiness as completely as one fluttering blue lycaenid butterfly resembles another.

  Hermann Hesse

  Butterfly, Blue, Hundred

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• It does help to actually realize that however stunning the person who is, you know, fluttering eyelashes at you, she doesn't do anything to match up to your wife.

  Colin Firth

  Eyelashes, Wife, Doe

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• Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakeable Chuang Chou. But he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou.

  Zhuangzi

  Dream, Philosophy, Butterfly

  Zhuangzi, Burton Watson, Columbia College (Columbia University) (1968). “The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu”, p.49, Columbia University Press

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• Well, possibly," I said, feeling my lips twitch again. "But maybe first you would tell us why you chose to manifest yourself in the form of Shirley Temple as last seen on the 'Good Ship Lollipop'?" The demon twirled around, its big pink sash fluttering as it smoothed down its dress and frilly little petticoat. "My grotesque form isn't making you sick with fright?" We both shook our heads, Noelle with a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. "Shirley Temple at her pinnacle was frightening," I finally told it, "but not in the sense I think you mean.

  Katie MacAlister

  Mean, Thinking, Hands

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• The train skimmed on softly, slithering, black pennants fluttering, black confetti lost on its own sick-sweet candy wind, down the hill, with the two boys pursuing, the air was so cold they ate ice cream with each breath.

  Ray Bradbury

  Sweet, Boys, Ice Cream

  Ray Bradbury (2017). “Something Wicked This Way Comes: A Novel”, p.48, Simon and Schuster

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• There's a very generous donation in the parish's future if you make this fast. Ten minutes, at the most." Frowning, the man fumbled open his liturgy. "There's an established rite, Your Grace. Marriage must be entered into with solemnity and consideration. I don't know that I can rush--" "Ten minutes. One thousand guineas." The liturgy snapped closed. "Then again, what do a few extra minutes signify to an eternal God?" He beckoned Amelia with a fluttering, papery hand. "Make haste, child. You're about to be married.

  Tessa Dare

  Children, Men, Hands

  Tessa Dare (2010). “One Dance with a Duke”, p.95, Ballantine Books

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• Music, I think, he makes me feel like music

  Lauren Oliver

  Thinking, He Makes Me Feel, Feels

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• I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

  Zhuangzi

  Inspirational, Dream, Wisdom

  'Chuang Tzu' (1889, translated by H. A. Giles) ch. 2

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• wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

  Emily Bronte

  Slumber, Earth, Quiet

  Wuthering Heights ch. 34 (1847)

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• The bird that would soar above the plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.

  Douglas Adams

  Courage, Strong, Wings

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• No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

  C. S. Lewis

  Wisdom, Grief, Yawning

  C.S. Lewis (2012). “A Grief Observed”, p.5, Faber & Faber

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• I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills When all at once I saw a crowd A host of golden daffodils Beside the lake beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

  William Wordsworth

  Lonely, Nature, Spring

  "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud" l. 1 (1815 ed.) See DorothyWordsworth 1

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• He was sailing over a boundless expanse of sea, with a blood-red sky above, and the angry waters, lashed into fury beneath, boiling and eddying up, on every side. There was another vessel before them, toiling and labouring in the howling storm: her canvas fluttering in ribbons from the mast.

  Charles Dickens

  Blood, Sea, Sky

  Charles Dickens (1838). “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club”, p.148

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• Now when you cut a forest, an ancient forest in particular, you are not just removing a lot of big trees and a few birds fluttering around in the canopy. You are drastically imperiling a vast array of species within a few square miles of you. The number of these species may go to tens of thousands. Many of them are still unknown to science, and science has not yet discovered the key role undoubtedly played in the maintenance of that ecosystem, as in the case of fungi, microorganisms, and many of the insects.

  E. O. Wilson

  Science, Cutting, Numbers

  "Naturally Good: A Behavioral History of Moral Development from Charles Darwin to E.O. Wilson". Book by John Henry Morgan, 2005.

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• No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.

  C. S. Lewis

  Fear, Grief, Yawning

  C.S. Lewis (2012). “A Grief Observed”, p.5, Faber & Faber

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• Necessity knows no magic formulae-they are all left to chance. If a love is to be unforgettable, fortuities must immediately start fluttering down to it like birds to Francis of Assisi's shoulders.

  Milan Kundera

  Love Is, Bird, Magic

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