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81 " Why are those who knew him, when they pass from the memory of a young man, sensitive and gay, to the work – novels and writings – surprised to pass into a nocturnal world, a world of cold torment, a world not without light but in which light blinds at the same time that it illuminates; gives hope, but makes hope the shadow of anguish and despair? Why is it that he who, in his work, passes from the objectivity of the narratives to the intimacy of the Diary, descends into a still darker night in which the cries of a lost man can be heard? Why does it seem that the closer one comes to his heart, the closer one comes to an unconsoled center from which a piercing flash sometimes bursts forth, an excess of pain, excess of joy? Who has the right to speak of Kafka without making this enigma heard, an enigma that speaks with the complexity, with the simplicity, of enigma? "
― Maurice Blanchot , Friendship
82 " The nature of the love of God for us is thereby revealed. It is not the love of an indulgent parent who gives into every whim of the child. In the end that is not the ‘love’ for the child but a form of self love for the parent. Despite the massive propaganda to the contrary, Our lord’s purpose for us is not to make us happy, but to make us holy. He loves us too much to leave us part saved, part remade, part sanctified. He wills our holiness, and since ‘suffering produces…’ (Rom 5:3), we may expect him to allow things in our lives which, in our self-centred pursuit of happiness, we ourselves would exclude. Yet even in the shadow of his love there is always mercy. Our sorrows are shared by him; he comes to us in our pain. The end of it all is not only his glory, which needs no justifying, but also our good. "
83 " Like the shadow of deathThe residue of heartbreakAlways lingers in the backgroundWith its darkness threatening to consume you "
84 " I have lived in the shadow of loss—the kind of loss that can paralyze you forever.I have grieved like a professional mourner—in every waking moment, draining every ounce of my life force.I died—without leaving my body.But I came back, and now it’s your turn.I have learned to remember my past—without living in it.I am strong, electric, and alive, because I chose to dance, to laugh, to love, and tolive again.I have learned that you can’t re-create the life you once had—you have toreinvent a life for yourself.And that reinvention is a gift, not a curse.I believe your future self is a work of art and that science can help you create it. If you’re lost . . . if you’re gone . . . if you can barely absorb the words on thispage . . . I want you to hold this truth in your heart: when it’s your time to go, you won’t wish you had spent more time grieving; you’ll wish you had spent more time living.That’s why I’m here. And why you are, too. Let’s live like our lives depend on it. "
― Christina Rasmussen , Second Firsts: Live, Laugh, and Love Again
85 " A month ago, Gavin had given his employer four weeks' notice. " I'll get a job around here," he'd told her. " Something low-stress, part-time, maybe. We're not paying rent, and Dad's left us plenty. You should quit, too." A year earlier this news would have filled her with delicious, full fat, chocolate-coated joy. But now, after a grueling routine of shitty work, shitty- weird home life in a house where the shadow of a dead boy walked more solidly than the grownups, shitty headaches, shitty worry about a husband who couldn't keep his dick out of other women, the golden offer just weirded Laine out. She didn't trust it. "
86 " He lived then before me, he lived as much as he had ever lived---a shadow insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities, a shadow darker than the shadow of the night, and draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence. The vision seemed to enter the house with me---the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshipers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum regular and muffled like the beating of a heart, the heart of a conquering darkness. "
― Joseph Conrad
87 " No one will retrieve my lost heartamidst so many roots, in the bitter freshnessof the sun multiplied by the fury of the water,there the shadow lives that does not travel with me. "
― Pablo Neruda , 100 Love Sonnets
88 " All was shattered, and all but memory lost, and one memory above all others, of him who brought the Shadow and the Breaking of the World. And him they named Dragon. "
― Robert Jordan
89 " I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun; and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a Shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren. "
― J.R.R. Tolkien , The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)
90 " In this he saw that Ogion had been right: the shadow could not draw on his power, so long as he was turned against it. "
― Ursula K. Le Guin
91 " Ian looked skyward to see the firedrake soaring overhead. Its mass was a black deluge, an eclipse of aberrant origins, and its wings were tautly wound, like a spider’s web. Scales that shown like bejeweled armor glistened upon its body. Its tail crashed against the air; the storm surge of an impetuous sea. The shadow it cast was an aperture of dementia that ripped asunder the sanity of those who watched. Astride the beast’s spine, rode a figure that resembled a man, but with such grandeur at his disposal, appeared a living god. "
― Fernando A. Torres , The Shadow That Endures
92 " Good luck' is like the shadow of a tree, for some time it gives comfort to a traveler but it doesn't go ahead with a traveler. "
― Amit Kalantri
93 " If I could make people feel, just for a day or an hour, what it’s like to love with infiniteness, then they would be animals no longer, but some greater creature, deserving of that title human. I’ve bettered a day though. On earth, they will have it thus: from birth to unavoidable death, a man is pumped so full of love that his eyes bleed rainbows and his mouth a barrel of miracles. His hands will heal then make monuments to commemorate it; they’ll press tight and pray for no man, no god but himself; and his mind… his mind will shower like spring rains. He will steal away from the shadow of ambition. He’ll be his own sun and light up the world with new marvels – be they art, philosophies, science – and in his brightness put the mundane, not himself, in shadows, and how rightfully. Each a captain and a maker, a mark-setter and stealer of shows... Earth’s skies will clap with the thunder of our majesty, not with violence, doubt, confusion, futility, and monotony; anything – anything – but the dull drone of duplication and robo-behaviour. "
― Richard Ronald Allan , Exit Eleonora
94 " I don’t want anything else bad to happen,” she whispered, her voice choked with tears. “I’m so sick to death of bad things happening, of seeing bad things that happened in the past! And I’m guilty of so many things. I’m sorry that I killed Mrs. Matthias and wrecked her stupid greenhouse back in the Eighties and I’m sorry I left you here alone while I went around the world.”“I wasn’t alone though, I knew you were doing what you wanted to do and that you were still alive, so I wasn’t really alone, I knew you were still there somewhere,” Alecto told her. His damaged smile and downcast, sorrowful eyes were draped in the shadow of the night, saving Mandy the trouble of seeing. "
95 " Living in a monastery, even as a guest rather than a monk, you have more opportunities than you might have elsewhere to see the world as it is, instead of through the shadow that you cast upon it. "
― Dean Koontz , Brother Odd (Odd Thomas, #3)
96 " I've been living in the shadow of empty people for far too long. Now I need to find chests full of wild lilies, minds full of wonder, hearts full of light. "
97 " Most attribute the domain of night to evil because they can't see. People fear the shadows of the night because shadows represent the unknown, and the unknown is frightening. They assume evil lurks behind every shadow, in every corner not illuminated. But their fear of the unknown is often what really terrifies them. They find comfort seeing in the daylight for that reason, but the irony is they are often more blinded by their comfort than by the shadow of night. It's a pity. If they could overcome their fear of the unknown they might realize that the unknown is not evil, it is simply an opportunity waiting to be explored. The night is no more a domain of evil than the daylight, both were created good, both have evil lurking in them. When you can overcome your fear, the night becomes a domain of beauty interlaced with danger, and that is exciting! "
98 " If you add the shadow of death to a moment of passion you are in that instant free of all normal ties, your mind grows still and your body enters a state of non-being. "
― Chloe Thurlow , Katie in Love
99 " When you start living under the shadow of somebody, you lose your own personality and your own passions. "
― Balroop Singh
100 " Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that came down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures. And of these histories most fair still in the ears of the Elves is the tale of Beren and Lúthien "
― J.R.R. Tolkien , The Silmarillion