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1 " Life's not the breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away. "
2 " But not just alive like I was yesterday and the day before. Alive like I knew I was alive. Like I could feel the breaths coming into my chest. And I knew I was the person inside my own body. "
― Matt de la Peña , We Were Here
3 " Zoe let the poetry flow over her, like shadows on water, sunlight against stone: timeworn words shaped like stars, like shells, like the ruins of lost temples, soft as the breaths of mystics. "
― Christine Brodien-Jones , The Glass Puzzle
4 " The room was filled with smoke, dry worn-out smoke retaining in it like a web the insectile cadavers of dry husks of words which had been spoken and should be gone, the breaths exhaled not to be breathed again. But the words went on, and in those brief interruptions between cigarettes the exhalations were rebreathed. "
― William Gaddis , The Recognitions
5 " We all believe we can choose our own path from among the many alternatives. But perhaps it’s more accurate to say that we make the choice unconsciously. I think I did – but now I knew it because now I was able to put it into words. But I don’t mean this in the fatalistic sense; we’re constantly making choices. With the breaths we take every day, with the expression in our eyes, with the daily actions we do over and over, we decide as though by instinct. And so some of us will inevitably find ourselves rolling around in a puddle on some roof in a strange place with a takeout katsudon in the middle of winter, looking up at the night sky, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "
― Banana Yoshimoto , Kitchen
6 " She hit the button again, holding her breath this time until she heard it.Soft, sibilant, as insubstantial as the breaths that came before: Shannon. The voice whispered Shannon. The blood rushed out of her head. Her heart knocked hard in her chest. Her knees buckled and she grabbed the counter to keep from falling. She was starting to hyperventilate, had to calm it down before she was taken by a full-blown panic attack. Paper bag. Think. Think! Drawer below the silverware, next to the sink. Over the nose and mouth. Breathe slowly, slowly.Holding the bag against her face, Shane slid to the floor with her back against the cabinets, legs splayed, lungs heaving. It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t be Jordan. Jordan was dead. "
― , Shattered Blue
7 " We are all running towards a destination which doesn't exist. On our way, dogs of life keep barking at us where we respond to some and some we throw stones at. Every dog teaches a lesson we are better off without. Every knife stabs a little deeper than we deserve. Every bruise stays a lot longer than it is meant to. Encumbered by forceful lessons of life we fight for the air of elation from the breaths we take to covert them into the moments of our real existence. Everything starts with life's tyrannical dominance and ends with our impelled submissiveness. We are the puppets of external circumstances and still we believe it's all on the inside. We should be laughing at our plight, someone has framed it with such sublimity. But all we do is ache at every shred of it because that's what keeps it alive. "
8 " He pressed the herb to his nose. Thyme. He loved the name and he loved the smell. He looked out the window at the illusion of deep woods. His face too was out there, hung on a tree and returning his gaze. He drew close to the glass to lose the mirror effect. Outside, the forest panted its beefy halitus; the soil held the breaths of gloom in its dampness. Fifteen thousand years ago a glacier had sliced through this park he was living in, bringing with it the nutrients from all its travels. Fifteen thousand years ago human beings were the fable that frightened the dark woods. "
― , The Home Jar: Stories
