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21 " The cats at the edge of the clearing were staring up at the sky, their eyes huge with fear. As he looked upward, Fireheart heard the beating of wings and saw a hawk circling above the trees, its harsh cry drifting on the air. At the same time he realized that one cat had not taken shelter; Snowkit was tumbling and playing in the middle of the open space." Snowkit!" Speckletail yowled desperately. "
22 " Eve continued with the inexorable process of dying, Zoe spent too much time with her grandparents, and Denny and I worked at slowing the beating of our hearts so we wouldn't feel so much pain. "
― Garth Stein , The Art of Racing in the Rain
23 " A man may beat down the bitter fruit from an evil tree until he is weary; while the root abides in strength and vigour, the beating down of the present fruit will not hinder it from bringing forth more. This is the folly of some men; they set themselves with all earnestness and diligence against the appearing eruption of lust, but, leaving the principle and root untouched, perhaps unsearched out, they make but little or no progress in this work of mortification. "
― John Owen , Mortification of Sin
24 " Unlike the bough that shook off her dead leaves violentlylike a wet terrier,unlike the beating of the butterfly, her wings, against the cocoon, some dreams never made a move. "
25 " When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it. "
26 " Write what you love. Fill your pages with the beating of your own heart, the breath from your own lungs. Live through your characters. Let your characters live through you. Then you will love what you write, and others will, too. "
27 " When he heard laughter, before he could think or feel anything, his heart would already be beating like he’d sprinted twenty yards. As the beating slowly normalized he’d think of how his heart, unlike him, was safely contained, away from the world, behind bone and inside skin, held by muscles and arteries in its place, carefully off-center, as if to artfully assert itself as source and creator, having grown the chest to hide in and to muffle and absorb—and, later, after innovating the brain and face and limbs, to convert into productive behavior—its uncontrollable, indefensible, unexplainable, embarrassing squeezing of itself. "
― Tao Lin , Taipei
28 " THE WILD ROSE” – BY WENDELL BERRYSometimes, hidden from me in daily custom and in ritualI live by you unaware, as if by the beating of my heart.Suddenly you flare again in my sightA wild rose at the edge of the thicket where yesterday there was onlyshadeAnd I am blessed and choose again,That which I chose before. "
― Wendell Berry
29 " So many stories lived behind my eyes. I carried the people I hurt, the lies I told, my sick relationship with food, wherever I went. My mind was rarely grounded in the moment. My past was heavy and constant; my thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone. But when I was with the shelter dogs, I didn’t have anything to hide. Sometimes what existed behind my eyes fell away. I wasn’t bulimic or unlovable or fat or a liar. I was a part of life again. I was an observer, and to more than just the dark cyclical patterns of the mind—here was the strong, sturdy presence of another—the breath moving in and out of Angel’s chest, the beating of her heart, the force of life moving through her and through me. "
― Shannon Kopp , Pound for Pound: A Story of One Woman's Recovery and the Shelter Dogs Who Loved Her Back to Life
30 " In the molten fire where he lay he could watch the slow machinations of eternity, the cosmic miracle of each second being born, eggshaped, silverplated, phallic, time thrusting itself gleaming through the worn and worthless husk of the microsecond previous, halting, beginning to show the slow and infinitesimal accreations of decay in the clocking away of life in a mechanism encoded at the moment of conception, withering, shunted aside by time's next orgasmic thrust, and all to the beating of some galactic heart, to voices, a madman's mutterings from a snare in the web of the world. "
― William Gay , The Long Home
31 " But in the machine of today we forget that motors are whirring: the motor, finally, has come to fulfill its function, which is to whirr as a heart beats - and we give no thought to the beating of our heart. Thus, precisely because it is perfect the machine dissembles its own existence instead of forcing itself upon our notice. "
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , Wind, Sand and Stars
32 " I've been mistaken to assume that in this little village in the spring, so like a dream or a poem, life is a matter only of the singing birds, the falling blossoms, and the bubbling springs. The real world has crossed mountains and seas and is bearing down even on this isolated village, whose inhabitants have doubtless lived here in peace down the long stretch of years ever since they fled as defeated warriors from the great clan wars of the twelfth century. Perhaps a millionth part of the blood that will dye the wide Manchurian plains will gush from this young man's arteries, or seethe forth at the point of the long sword that hangs at his waist. Yet here this young man sits, beside an artist for whom the sole value of human life lies in dreaming. If I listen carefully, I can even hear the beating of his heart, so close are we. And perhaps even now, within that beat reverberates the beating of the great tide that is sweeping across the hundreds of miles of that far battlefield. Fate has for a brief and unexpected moment brought us together in this room, but beyond that it speaks no more. "
― Natsume Sōseki , The Three-Cornered World
33 " It’s said that the shuffling of the cards is the earth, and the pattering of the cards is the rain, and the beating of the cards is the wind, and the pointing of the cards is the fire. That’s of the four suits. But the Greater Trumps, it’s said, are the meaning of all process and the measure of the everlasting dance. "
― Charles Williams
34 " The scar on my chest, the beating of my heart, and the mountains that fostered my appreciation for the cold, hard, natural world—these were the few things that mattered. "
― Daniel Wallock , Right-Hearted: Finding What's Right With a Wrong-Sided Heart
35 " The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums. "
36 " Of all the music that reached farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart. "
― Henry Ward Beecher