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1 " When in doubt, look inwards and honestly count your blessings. We often grumble when things go wrong or when we get hurt. We are prone to crib about what we don’t have and forget to see what we already have. Comparing yourself with the good fortune of others is bound to bring a lot of misery in its wake. If you really want to get into that comparison mood then compare yourself with those who are less fortunate. A man who had just lost his job was sitting dejectedly in his balcony and watching people pass by when his eyes fell on a beggar who was rummaging through garbage for some food. The man in the balcony felt happy that at least he had enough to eat and was not reduced to what the beggar was doing. The beggar saw a one legged man who was hobbling around on crutches and felt happy that he had all his limbs intact. The one legged man saw a man being taken in a wheel chair and counted himself fortunate that he could at least move around on his own. The man in the wheel chair saw a hearse taking away a dead body and thanked God that he was alive. "
2 " She flicked off the light and was about to step out onto the balcony when she heard a familiar sound. She smiled and went to the rail. “Now I’ve seen everything,” she whispered as Lexi climbed down onto the balcony. They looked at one another for a moment without saying a word. Cate felt her heart race as Lexi’s dark eyes penetrated through her mask like lasers. Lexi reached for her and pulled her inside. "
3 " Stephen had been put to sleep in his usual room, far from children and noise, away in that corner of the house which looked down to the orchard and the bowling-green, and in spite of his long absence it was so familiar to him that when he woke at about three he made his way to the window almost as quickly as if dawn had already broken, opened it and walked out onto the balcony. The moon had set: there was barely a star to be seen. The still air was delightfully fresh with falling dew, and a late nightingale, in an indifferent voice, was uttering a routine jug-jug far down in Jack's plantations; closer at hand and more agreeable by far, nightjars churred in the orchard, two of them, or perhaps three, the sound rising and falling, intertwining so that the source could not be made out for sure. There were few birds that he preferred to nightjars, but it was not they that had brought him out of bed: he stood leaning on the balcony rail and presently Jack Aubrey, in a summer-house by the bowling-green, began again, playing very gently in the darkness, improvising wholly for himself, dreaming away on his violin with a mastery that Stephen had never heard equalled, though they had played together for years and years.Like many other sailors Jack Aubrey had long dreamed of lying in his warm bed all night long; yet although he could now do so with a clear conscience he often rose at unChristian hours, particularly if he were moved by strong emotion, and crept from his bedroom in a watch-coat, to walk about the house or into the stables or to pace the bowling-green. Sometimes he took his fiddle with him. He was in fact a better player than Stephen, and now that he was using his precious Guarnieri rather than a robust sea-going fiddle the difference was still more evident: but the Guarnieri did not account for the whole of it, nor anything like. Jack certainly concealed his excellence when they were playing together, keeping to Stephen's mediocre level: this had become perfectly clear when Stephen's hands were at last recovered from the thumb-screws and other implements applied by French counter-intelligence officers in Minorca; but on reflexion Stephen thought it had been the case much earlier, since quite apart from his delicacy at that period, Jack hated showing away.Now, in the warm night, there was no one to be comforted, kept in countenance, no one could scorn him for virtuosity, and he could let himself go entirely; and as the grave and subtle music wound on and on, Stephen once more contemplated on the apparent contradiction between the big, cheerful, florid sea-officer whom most people liked on sight but who would have never been described as subtle or capable of subtlety by any one of them (except perhaps his surviving opponents in battle) and the intricate, reflective music he was now creating. So utterly unlike his limited vocabulary in words, at times verging upon the inarticulate.'My hands have now regained the moderate ability they possessed before I was captured,' observed Maturin, 'but his have gone on to a point I never thought he could reach: his hands and his mind. I am amazed. In his own way he is the secret man of the world. "
― Patrick O'Brian , The Commodore (Aubrey & Maturin #17)
4 " I search his eyes for the slightest sign of anything, fear, remorse, anger. But there's only the same look of amusement that ended our last conversation. It's as if he's speaking the words again. " Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other." He's right. We did.The point of my arrow shifts upward. I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead. "
5 " Sometimes, when I’m chain smoking on the balcony and feeling like shit (which happens more often than I’d like to admit), I let go of a lit cigarette just to see if the ember will outlast the fall.It rarely does. "
― , Split Lips: Stories About Love & Sex
6 " Thinking about going to the balcony and jumping off. "
7 " The music grew louder, faster, as we saw an empty couch on the balcony and ran to get it, pushed aside another couple darting for the same thing, but it was ours, and we smiled wide, laughing at our fortune, our couch. "
― Lee Matthew Goldberg , Slow Down
8 " Eunice had deposited St John upon the balcony of the first-floor apartment of former Liberal MP, The Rt. Hon. Leonard Cossins, the disgraced Lord Mayor of Mitchell-Baines who had been removed from office having been caught administering counterfeit buttercup syrup to the local yeomanry whilst on a hunting trip to Stoke-Poges. "
― St. John Morris , The Bizarre Letters of St John Morris
9 " A man may have ‘his moment,’ and that moment endure for decades, or only for the few seconds it takes for a bullet to travel across a courtyard to the balcony upon which he stands as he exhorts his people to follow him. "
― Ralph E. Vaughan , Amidst Dark Satanic Mills (Folkestone & Hand, # 2)
10 " Alex resisted the urge to throw Seb off the balcony and see if he could fly. "
― l.a weatherly
11 " Here I came to the very edge where nothing at all needs saying, everything is absorbed through weather and the sea, and the moon swam back, its rays all silvered, and time and again the darkness would be broken by the crash of a wave, and every day on the balcony of the sea, wings open, fire is born, and everything is blue again like morning. "
― Pablo Neruda
12 " I finally found him sitting on his balcony. He was leaning back against the wall with his eyes closed. Soft music played, and a cool ocean breeze blew back my hair as I stepped on to the balcony and inhaled the scent of the sea." May I join you?" I asked softly.He didn’t bother opening his eyes. " If you like." The moon in the dark sky looked like a giant white plate dipping its edge into the ocean. We sat quietly for a while. I closed my eyes too and listened to him hum along in harmony with the music." You haven’t played your guitar in a long time. I miss it," I said when the song was finished.Ren turned away. " I fear there is no music left in me. "