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ebd6b5e Margo always loved mysteries. And in everything that came afterward, I could never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she became one. young-adult nerdfighters mystery ya John Green
571f7d7 The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes. detective mystery crime novel Arthur Conan Doyle; Corrections And Editor Edgar W. Smith; Illustrators
b5331ee We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. nature unexplorable unfathomable wildness explore exploration wild land mystery sea mysterious wilderness Henry David Thoreau
a7162cb No. No, I don't believe you'd betray me with her. I don't believe you'd cheat on me. But I'm afraid, and I'm sick in my heart that you might look at her, then at me. And regret. romance mystery J.D. Robb
a4e9d06 Nothing whets the intelligence more than a passionate suspicion, nothing develops all the faculties of an immature mind more than a trail running away into the dark. intelligence puzzle trail mystery Stefan Zweig
67bddbc "My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world." rebellion mind stagnation sherlock-holmes mystery Arthur Conan Doyle
c975a16 Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery. fish earth man loss nature world wonder past parable brooks glens environment trout mystery destruction creation maps Cormac McCarthy
23b537e No, I would not want to live in a world without dragons, as I would not want to live in a world without magic, for that is a world without mystery, and that is a world without faith. magic world faith mystery R.A. Salvatore
788a020 "Well, good-bye for now," he said, rolling his neck as if we hadn't been talking about anything important at all. He bowed at the waist, those wings vanishing entirely, and had begun to fade into the nearest shadow when he went rigid. His eyes locked on mine wide and wild, and his nostrils flared. Shock--pure shock flashed across his features at whatever he saw on my face, and he stumbled back a step. Actually stumbled. "What is--" I began. He disappeared--simply disappeared, not a shadow in sight--into the crisp air." rhysand feyre shock rhys mystery Sarah J. Maas
5c78852 It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed philosphy mystery soul Thomas Moore
f6940bc In my experience, boys are predictable. As soon as they think of something, they do it. Girls are smarter--they plan ahead. They think about not getting caught. investigations half-moon girls mystery Eoin Colfer
433d28c I would prefer not to. secret nobody melville puzzle mystery Herman Melville
f033ccd Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?' 'To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.' 'The dog did nothing in the night-time.' 'That was the curious incident,' remarked Sherlock Holmes. humor incident silver sherlock-holmes mystery curious dog Arthur Conan Doyle
4155144 Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. mind wisdom eternity mystery Edgar Allan Poe
ca28a8d The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries. universe life cosmos mystery Carl Sagan
52b7ad3 When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story. perfection fiction discovery writing overdetermination plot mystery Charles Baxter
2eebc66 Your heart's desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery. mystery Cormac McCarthy
76ce296 The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic. criticism critic detectives mystery crime creativity G.K. Chesterton
6b4d58a I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it. inspirational miracles mystery Sue Monk Kidd
d8bae8f "So I find words I never thought to speak words travel poetry fantasy little-gidding visit shore streets mystery timelessness T.S. Eliot
2b65e18 Don't judge a book by its cover cover judge mystery George Eliot
910c199 The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion . . . open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony. irony color compassion beauty detail attention interest mystery Orhan Pamuk
72f0054 Eve: What is it about asking you Catholic questions that gets you all jumpy? Roarke: You'd be jumpy, too, if I asked you things that make you feel the hot breath of hell at your back. Eve: You're not going to hell. Roarke: Oh, and have you got some inside intel on that? Eve: You married a cop...you married me. I'm your goddamn salvation. romance mystery suspense J.D. Robb
8f937fe Roarke: The bodies of the three men were found floating in the Chattahoochee River. Eve: I think it'd be embarrassing to be dead in the Hoochie-Coochie River. Roarke: Chattahoochee Eve: What's the difference? Roarke: Quite a bit, I'd think. romance mystery suspense J.D. Robb
5d32055 Lots of things are mysteries. But that doesn't mean there isn't an answer to them. It's just that scientists haven't found the answer yet. mystery the-unknown Mark Haddon
0358a63 If she spoke, she would tell him the truth: she was not okay at all, but horribly empty, now that she knew what it was like to be filled. fiction love truth jodi-picoult filled plain-truth say okay tell empty speak mystery drama novel Jodi Picoult
1b69b50 "You look back on some little decision you made and realize all the things that happened because of it, and you think to yourself "if only I'd known," but, of course, you couldn't have known." -- mystery Mary Downing Hahn
9ca1fb7 "...he asked, "Where are you today, right now?" Eagerly, I started talking about myself. However, I noticed that I was still being sidetracked from getting answers to my questions. Still, I told him about my distant and recent past and about my inexplicable depressions. He listened patiently and intently, as if he had all the time in the world, until I finished several hours later. "Very well," he said. "But you still have not answered my question about where you are." "Yes I did, remember? I told you how I got to where I am today: by hard work." "Where are you?" "What do you mean, where am I?" "Where Are you?" he repeated softly. "I'm here." "Where is here?" "In this office, in this gas station!" I was getting impatient with this game. "Where is this gas station?" "In Berkeley?" "Where is Berkeley?" "In California?" "Where is California?" "In the United States?" "On a landmass, one of the continents in the Western Hemisphere. Socrates, I..." "Where are the continents? I sighed. "On the earth. Are we done yet?" "Where is the earth?" "In the solar system, third planet from the sun. The sun is a small star in the Milky Way galaxy, all right?" "Where is the Milky Way?" "Oh, brother, " I sighed impatiently, rolling my eyes. "In the universe." I sat back and crossed my arms with finality. "And where," Socrates smiled, "is the universe?" "The universe is well, there are theories about how it's shaped..." "That's not what I asked. Where is it?" "I don't know - how can I answer that?" "That is the point. You cannot answer it, and you never will. There is no knowing about it. You are ignorant of where the universe is, and thus, where you are. In fact, you have no knowledge of where anything is or of What anything is or how is came to be. Life is a mystery. "My ignorance is based on this understanding. Your understanding is based on ignorance. This is why I am a humorous fool, and you are a serious jackass." universe philosophy listening mystery Dan Millman
7a005cd I had two dreams about him after he died. I dont remember the first one all that well but it was about meetin him in town somewheres and he give me some money and I think I lost it. But the second one it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin through the mountains of a night. Goin through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin. Never said nothin. He just rode on past and he had this blanket wrapped around him and he had his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up. hopeful prophetic mystery Cormac McCarthy
8a33362 I have lived one step away from losing my mind for years. I am quick and accurate in spotting unstable streaks in others. shakespeare бард lily cozy mystery Charlaine Harris
aef6fbd "And I suppose you know who Magnus' father is?" Luke said. "I paid a lot of money once to find it out," Raphael said." secret magnus-father raphael-santiago mystery Cassandra Clare
e7eaaba I pulled out Riptide. mystery Rick Riordan
ec38e62 When Don Quixote went out into the world, that world turned into a mystery before his eyes. That is the legacy of the first European novel to the entire subsequent history of the novel. The novel teaches us to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. wisdom tolerance mystery novel Milan Kundera
55debcd Death and what came after death was no great mystery to Sabriel. She just wished it was. wish mystery Garth Nix
05a6f80 One little Indian left all alone, he went out and hanged himself and then there were none. suicide nursery-rhyme rhyme mystery Agatha Christie
30b2a1d I'm sorry, but I do hate this differentiation between the sexes. 'The modern girl has a thoroughly businesslike attitude to life' That sort of thing. It's not a bit true! Some girls are businesslike and some aren't. Some men are sentimental and muddle-headed, others are clear-headed and logical. There are just different types of brains. mystery Agatha Christie
417fef9 "It often seems to me that's all detective work is, wiping out your false starts and beginning again." "Yes, it is very true, that. And it is just what some people will not do. They conceive a certain theory, and everything has to fit into that theory. If one little fact will not fit it, they throw it aside. But it is always the facts that will not fit in that are significant." -- theory fact mystery Agatha Christie
3d9f32b "I always wanted to eat with a Negro," Grandma said. Yeah, well I always wanted to eat with a boney-assed old white woman," Lula said. "So I guess this works out good." thriller mystery Janet Evanovich
9a07ea4 ...to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender... presence uncertainty mystery surrender Rebecca Solnit
a0ad694 "As Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard says, "To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist." -- living witness mystery Madeleine L'Engle
689ac41 So you want me to go to a human orgy, where I will not be welcome, and you want us to leave before I get to enjoy myself? ~Eric Northman romance fantasy mystery vampire paranormal Charlaine Harris
ac63bdd I'm a conundrum. Or an enigma. I forget which. personality mystery James A. Owen
1165c00 We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody threw the girl off the bridge. great-opening-lines mystery John D. MacDonald
6479468 People give flowers as presents because flowers contain the true meaning of love. Anyone tries to possess a flower will have to watch its beauty fading. But if you simply look at a flower on a field, you will keep it forever, because the flower is part of the evening and the sunset and the smell of damp earth and the clouds on the horizon. passion love moon soulmate visible witch sun invisible mystery Paulo Coelho
9c5126f "Mr. Satterthwaite looked cheered. Suddenly an idea struck him. His jaw fell. "My goodness," he cried, "I've only just realized it! That rascal, with his poisoned cocktail! Anyone might have drunk it! It might have been me!" "There is an even more terrible possibility that you have not considered," said Poirot. "Eh?" "It might have been me," said Hercule Poirot." humor poirot hercule-poirot mystery poison Agatha Christie
60843b4 A pleasant morning. Saw my classmates Gardner, and Wheeler. Wheeler dined, spent the afternoon, and drank Tea with me. Supped at Major Gardiners, and engag'd to keep School at Bristol, provided Worcester People, at their ensuing March meeting, should change this into a moving School, not otherwise. Major Greene this Evening fell into some conversation with me about the Divinity and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ. All the Argument he advanced was, 'that a mere creature, or finite Being, could not make Satisfaction to infinite justice, for any Crimes,' and that 'these things are very mysterious.' (Thus mystery is made a convenient Cover for absurdity.) [ ] argument cover divinity-of-jesus excuse infinite mystery hell John Adams
f4a085d I want to keep you, till the end of days. fiction mystery J.D. Robb
cdc446e ...I've come to realize that the only truths that matter to me are the ones I don't, and can't, understand. What's mysterious, ambiguous, inexplicable. What doesn't fit into a story, what doesn't have a story. Glint of brightness on a barely-there chain. Patch of sunlight on a yellow wall. The loneliness that separates every living creature from every other living creature. Sorrow inseparable from joy. loneliness mystery Donna Tartt
af6d31c Going for it and changing what you could change-that's what success was all about. mystery suspense Julie Garwood
b699c1f We always know when we are awake that we cannot be dreaming even though when actually dreaming we feel all this may be real. real dreaming mystery Ruth Rendell
1b92b0c For surely as each November has its April, mysteries only are significant; and one mystery-of-mysteries creates them all: nothing false and possible is love (who's imagined,therefore limitless) love's to giving as to keeping's give; as yes is to if,love is to yes transcendence mystery E.E. Cummings
3497fc6 Daniel supposed he had a secret life. Most people did; it was hardly possible to live without one. secret mask mystery psychology P.D. James
2ce69c7 When the sea goes down, there will come from the mainland boats and men. And they will find ten dead bodies and an unsolved problem on Indian Island. mystery Agatha Christie
037f8b1 Tell them I have the headache--no, the plague! I need something nice and contagious. humorous-quotations mystery Lauren Willig
8c7cf2c However close you get to others, you can never get inside them, even when you're inside them. limitations relationships limits mystery Ian McEwan
7c2b266 [T]he experience of mystery comes not from expecting it but through yielding all your programs, because your programs are based on fear and desire. Drop them and the radiance comes. (16) fear mystery desire expectations Joseph Campbell
3c26abc Sensationalism dies quickly, fear is long-lived. fiction bestselling hercule agatha-christie christie poirot hercule-poirot mystery suspense Agatha Christie
e68c3f5 Again time elapsed. time drew elapsed nancy mystery Carolyn Keene
661243f Authors were shy, unsociable creatures, atoning for their lack of social aptitude by inventing their own companions and conversations. whodunnit authors social-life mystery Agatha Christie
db3b234 How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a spectre through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat? mind hate courage fear hope men-s-heart self-loathing fright mystery fight mental-illness torture Joseph Conrad
bd82d8d "You gonna take the case?" It's not a case. It's a missing person. Sort of." You're gonna have a devil of a time finding him if it was aliens," Grandma said." mystery Janet Evanovich
6c55c5e Ultima came to stay with us the summer I was almost seven. When she came the beauty of the llano unfolded before my eyes, and the gurgling waters of the river sang to the hum of the turning earth. The magical time of childhood stood still, and the pulse of the living earth pressed its mystery into my living blood. beauty llano bless rudolfo ultima me river mystery childhood Rudolfo Anaya
c86d402 We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self. These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,--the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled Autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man. winter perfection shakespeare true grief doubt passion nature joy fear past death dreams music hope life love truth hateful philosophies religion-myths scorn sacred-books brave tender fairy haunted pagan king-lear spring woods fable poetic mountains lake birth smiles deny eternity autumn punishment gods effort tears questions mystery beautiful throne summer thought delight william-shakespeare pleasure Robert G. Ingersoll
a1295c3 All roads lead to Trantor, and that is where all stars end. philosophical mystery Isaac Asimov
a361cb6 "Ben, if you get pee in my brand-new car, I am going to cut your balls off." Still peeing, Ben looks over at me smirking. "You're gonna need a hell of a big knife, bro." friendship philosophy road-trip mystery young-adults John Green
e1d3ba1 You ache with it all; and the more mysterious it is, the more you ache. pain sadness love painful suffer mystery Fyodor Dostoyevsky
9fcfa94 If one could order a crime as one does a dinner, what would you choose? . . . Let's review the menu. Robbery? Frogery? No, I think not. Rather too vegetarian. It must be murder--red-blooded murder--with trimmings, of course. murder mystery Agatha Christie
db05546 The type of mind that can understand good fiction is not necessarily the educated mind, but it is at all times the kind of mind that is willing to have its sense of mystery deepened by contact with reality, and its sense of reality deepened by contact with mystery. literature mystery Flannery O'Connor
dbfbba6 Bina, thank you. Bina, listen, this guy. His name wasn't Lasker. This guy-' She puts a hand to his mouth. She has not touched him in three years. It probably would be too much to say that he feels the darkness lift at the touch of her fingertips against his lips. But it shivers, and light bleeds in among the cracks. love reconciliation detective noir mystery Michael Chabon
2bb526d In spite of all the sparring that went on between us, I sort of liked Morelli. Good judgment told me to stand clear of him, but then I've never been a slave to good judgment. stephanie-plum mystery Janet Evanovich
8444416 So much of history is mystery. We don't know what is lost forever, what will surface again. All objects exist in a moment of time. And that fragment of time is preserved or lost or found in mysterious ways. Mystery is a wonderful part of life. mystery Amy Tan
6817287 The light was only just visible - except of course that there was no one to see, no witnesses, not this time, but it was nevertheless a light. light mystery Douglas Adams
4d21dc4 I didn't know that once you've proven yourself useful to the wrong people, you'll never be free again. thriller mystery suspense Steve Hamilton
23e63d5 There is no Mystery so great as Misery. mystery Oscar Wilde
3579719 Then there are some minor points that strike me as suggestive - for instance, the position of Mrs. Hubbard's sponge bag, the name of Mrs. Armstrong's mother, the detective methods of Mr. Hardman, the suggestion of Mr. MacQueen that Ratchett himself destroyed the charred note we found, Princess Dragomiroff's Christian name, and a grease spot on a Hungarian passport. humor mystery Agatha Christie
9835a08 Dogma is the guardian of mystery. The doctrines are spiritually significant in ways that we cannot fathom. dogma mystery Flannery O'Connor
7839906 There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes -- die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed. mystery secrets Edgar Allan Poe
4bc0b24 He [Harry Bosch] defined good company not by the conversation but by the lack of it. When there was no need to talk to feel comfortable, that was the right company war vietnam mystery Michael Connelly
e5fdfe9 Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain. But if we describe a world to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and light...unless all ages and races of men have been deluded by the same mass hypnotist (who?), there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous...we don't know what's going on here. If these tremendous events are random combinations of matter run amok, the yield of millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters, then what is it in us, hammered out of those same typewriters, that they ignite? We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise. spirituality landscape mystery mysticism Annie Dillard
977a62b All forests are one... They are all echoes of the first forest that gave birth to Mystery when the world began. world trees mystery Charles de Lint
fcc10af LIPID (Last Idiot Person I Dated) syndrome: a largely undiagnosed but pervasive disease that afflicts single women. humor romance-novels mystery Lauren Willig
fc654b2 The finest thing in the world is knowing how to belong to oneself. Michel de Montaigne mystery-series psychological-thriller thriller noir mystery Laurie Stevens
11487cb Do you see this lantern? cried Syme in a terrible voice.'Do you see the cross carved on it, and the flame inside? You did not make it. You did not light it. Better men than you, men who could believe and obey, twisted the entrails of iron and preserved the legend of fire. There is not a street you walk on, there is not a thread you wear, that was not made as this lantern was, by denying your philosophy of dirt and rats. You can make nothing. You can only destroy. You will destroy mankind, you will destroy the world. Let that suffice you. Yet this one old Christian lantern you shall not destroy. It shall go where your empire of apes will never have the wit to find it. mystery G.K. Chesterton
9584f08 "If I learned anything about her it was that she lived with a vehemence most of us never have the courage for." Banks tells me. "But there was something about her that precluded an ordinary existence. In some ways, I'm not surprised she's dead. A job, husband, kids, a beach house? That wasn't her. I can't explain why, except she was more like a force that whipped through life, defying logic, scaring you, even hurting you because she was everything you wanted to be, but you knew you'd never have the guts - and then she was gone. That was my experience with Ashley Cordova." enigmas human-existence mystery Marisha Pessl
93a67d6 In truly good writing no matter how many times you read it you do not know how it is done. That is beacause there is a mystery in all great writing and that mystery does not dis-sect out. It continues and it is always valid. Each time you re-read you see or learn something new. re-reading mystery Ernest Hemingway
55b934a I also had a dim idea that if I walked the streets of New York by myself all night something of the city's mystery and magnificence might rub off on me at last. But I gave it up. solitude magnificence mystery new-york Sylvia Plath
c5fd284 Why didn't they ask the Evans? murder last-words why mystery Agatha Christie
447f864 And the supreme mystery was simply this: here was one room; there another. Did religion solve that, or love? religion love separateness rooms mystery Virginia Woolf
efad576 I'm relaxed, Belk. I call it Zen and the art of not giving a shit. harry-bosch mystery Michael Connelly
b3c01dd There is justice in the world, Peter Lake, but it cannot be had without mystery. philosophical mystery Mark Helprin
cd4bb64 I don't need shoes. I need a night scope. You think they sell night scopes someplace here? stephanie-plum mystery Janet Evanovich
682f830 (From the Author Note at the beginning of the book.) Dorothy L. Sayers used to say that mystery stories were the only moral fiction of the modern world--because in a mystery, you were guaranteed to see that the bad got punished, the good got rewarded and in the end all was made right. I'd like to think that fantasy does the same thing. It reminds us that , and maybe if we all put our minds to it a little more, . The good will be rewarded. The bad will be punished. Sins will be forgiven. And they will live happily ever after. fiction morality mystery Mercedes Lackey
8c16c1b A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel... he must lay the best coffee hearth to attract the finest men... a good ruler has to learn his world's language... it's different for every world... the language of the rocks and growing things... the language you don't hear just with your ears... the Mystery of Life... not a problem to solve, but a reality to experience... Understanding must move with the flow of the process. understanding problem leadership reality life flow team languages experience mystery persuasion process Frank Herbert
06311fd "Disembodied spirits," said his partner, "are not known to use telephones. Neither are spooks, phantoms, or werewolves." "That was in the old days. Why shouldn't they change with the times and be modern, too?" -- young-adult mystery Robert Arthur
182cdd4 ...every life is like a snowflake: individual existences might look identical from afar, but to understand one's own eternally mysterious uniqueness one had only to plot the mysteries of one's own snowflake. uniqueness-of-individual mystery snow Orhan Pamuk
c5172d3 Concert pianists get to be quite chummy with dead composers. They can't help it. Classical music isn't just . It's a personal diary. An uncensored confession in the dead of night. A baring of the soul. Take a modern example. Florence and the Machine? In the song 'Cosmic Love,' she catalogs the way in which the world has gone dark, distorting her, when she, a rather intense young woman, was left bereft by a love affair. 'The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out. music classical-music cosmic-love florence-and-the-machine florence-welch night-film love-affair lyrics confession thriller mystery diary horror suspense Marisha Pessl
9793e93 I needed a new mystery. mystery John Fowles
d11964f It would be, like all of Pammy's parties, hot and crowded and filled with impossibly glamorous people with hip bones so sharp they could qualify as concealed weapons. romance humor mystery Lauren Willig
1e354a9 He saw trust. Complete trust. It was a gift, a precious one, and it humbled him. I've got you, Emeline. I will always be with you. Dragomire to Emeline, Dark Legacy, Dark #27 romance fantasy dark-27 dark-legacy mystery crime paranormal vampires Christine Feehan
c6fbe44 In her eyes was the reflection of everything that mattered: old diners with neon signs, vinyl records, celluloid film, drive-in movies, Pears soap, department stores, her brother's old blue Camaro car and the smell of coal dust in the rainy sky of a summer lightning storm. ...And all the nice bright colors of the past that she thought were gone for good came flowing back into her life like a wave of nostalgia flooding over her, reds, yellows, blues and greens drenching her gray memories in psychedelic ribbons and glittering fireworks. ...She hoped that the world would always hold those miniscule yet beautiful, deep and mysterious traces of memory. earth world rurl found-footage kodak bright colors mystery beautiful memory nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
5636462 The Templars' mental confusion makes them indecipherable. That's why so many people venerate them. templars venerate mystery unknown Umberto Eco
d9e2c4f One thing, however, did become clear to him--why so many perfect works of art did not please him at all, why they were almost hateful and boring to him, in spite of a certain undeniable beauty. Workshops, churches, and palaces were full of these fatal works of art; he had even helped with a few himself. They were deeply disappointing because they aroused the desire for the highest and did not fulfill it. They lacked the most essential thing--mystery. That was what dreams and truly great works of art had in common: mystery. beauty inspiration beauty-in-art mystery Hermann Hesse
28e48ab Some cities, like wrapped boxes under Christmas trees, conceal unexpected gifts, secret delights. Some cities will always remain wrapped boxes, containers of riddles never to be solved, nor even to be seen by vacationing visitors, or, for that matter, the most inquisitive, persistent travelers. travel mystery Truman Capote
b85f1d0 The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify? thought-provoking mystery Milan Kundera
306c432 A fallow mind is a field of discontent. humor bahamas carl-hiaasen john-d-macdonald key-west randy-wayne-white tim-dorsey tom-corcoran aviation cuba thriller mystery John H. Cunningham
60b729b "I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt to approach some innocent at a gathering, and like the ancient mariner, fix him with a wild, glitt'ring eye and say, "Do you know that in the head of the caterpillar of the ordinary goat moth there are two hundred twenty-eight separate muscles?" The poor wretch flees. I am not making chatter; I mean to change his life." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
930be32 "When I encountered these haunting words from Franz Kafka, I realized exactly why this light sermon about the search for God had struck such a nerve: "Everyday life is the greatest detective story ever written. Every second, without noticing, we pass by thousands of corpses and crimes. That's the routine of our lives." religion mystery Stephen Kendrick
d102013 Maybe this is what it feels like for civilians when they see cops doing some of the dirty work. A lot of times they don't understand what's happening. They see something they don't like and it upsets them--because they don't have the full story, aren't personally facing the problem, and don't know how much worse the alternative could be. detectives mystery crime police Jim Butcher
6478149 A kind of northing is what I wish to accomplish, a single-minded trek towards that place where any shutter left open to the zenith at night will record the wheeling of all the sky's stars as a pattern of perfect, concentric circles. I seek a reduction, a shedding, a sloughing off. At the seashore you often see a shell, or fragment of a shell, that sharp sands and surf have thinned to a wisp. There is no way you can tell what kind of shell it had been, what creature it had housed; it could have been a whelk or a scallop, a cowrie, limpet, or conch. The animal is long since dissolved, and its blood spread and thinned in the general sea. All you hold in your hand is a cool shred of shell, an inch long, pared so thin that it passes a faint pink light. It is an essence, a smooth condensation of the air, a curve. I long for the North where unimpeded winds would hone me to such a pure slip of bone. But I'll not go northing this year. I'll stalk that floating pole and frigid air by waiting here. I wait on bridges; I wait, struck, on forest paths and meadow's fringes, hilltops and banksides, day in and day out, and I receive a southing as a gift. The North washes down the mountains like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, and pours across the valley; it comes to me. It sweetens the persimmons and numbs the last of the crickets and hornets; it fans the flames of the forest maples, bows the meadow's seeded grasses and pokes it chilling fingers under the leaf litter, thrusting the springtails and the earthworms deeper into the earth. The sun heaves to the south by day, and at night wild Orion emerges looming like the Specter over Dead Man Mountain. Something is already here, and more is coming. fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
026e629 "Oh, sometimes I like to put the sand of doubt into the oyster of my faith." (Br. Cadfael)" spirituality religion theology mystery Ellis Peters
42c20c6 "Every life is a mystery. And every story of every life is a mystery. But it is not what happens that is the mystery. It is whether it has to happen no matter what, whether it is ordered and ordained, fixed and fated, or whether it can be missed, avoided, circumvented, passed by; that is the mystery. If she had not come along the Via Piemonte that day, would it still have happened? If she had come along the Via Piemonte that day, but ten minutes later than she did, would it still have happened? Therein lies the real mystery. And no one ever knows, and no one ever will. ("For The Rest Of Her Life")" fate story free-will life random-chance mystery Cornell Woolrich
8e7cac9 This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name. The consciousness that animates us is itself central to this mystery and the ground for any experience we might wish to call 'spiritual.' No myths need be embraced for us to commune with the profundity of our circumstance. No personal God need be worshiped for us to live in awe at the beauty and immensity of creation. No tribal fictions need be rehearsed for us to realize, one fine day, that we do, in fact, love our neighbors, that our happiness is inextricable from their own, and that our interdependence demands that people everywhere be given the opportunity to flourish. reason spirituality religion love mystery Sam Harris
c5a6e6f Next time she'd have to ask him to keep the light on while he did it, so she could watch his face. That was the best part of the whole thing as far as she was concerned, the way a guy's face contorted so violently and then relaxed, as if some terrible mystery had just been solved. mystery Tom Perrotta
c3f86bc It isn't fair, but maybe that's the whole point. Fairness has no part in real life, and she took that lesson away from the Hotel Angeline with her. life-lessons life mystery fairness Susan Wiggs
c2a8601 "I can't believe I have you here with me," she whispered and turned her face into his throat, nuzzling him. Inhaling. Tasting his skin with her tongue. "My life was pain and terror. You took away his voice. You gave me hope that my daughter would survive and others wouldn't shun her. I was terrified and alone, and you changed all that. You brought beauty and hope back into my life. Thank you for that, Dragomire. I swear I will spend every minute making you happy." Emeline to Dragomire, Dark Legacy, Dark #27" romance fantasy dark-27 dark-legacy mystery crime paranormal vampires Christine Feehan
362a974 But he also knew that, as much as he wanted to aid and console the soldier, he wanted to be alone in his room with the night coming down and a book close by and pen and paper and the knowledge that the door would remain shut until the morning came and he would ne be disturbed. The gap between these two desires filled him with sadness and awe at the mystery of the self, the mystery of having a single consciousness, knowing merely its own bare feelings and experiencing singly and alone it own pain or fear or pleasure or complacency. loneliness self mystery Colm Tóibín
c5d7d1c "On a trip to Russia I bought one of those Matryoshka "nested dolls" that break apart at the waist to reveal smaller and smaller dolls inside...it occurred to me to me later that each of us, like the nested dolls, contains multiple selves, making us a mysterious combination of good and evil, wisdom and folly, reason and instinct... (pp.80)" grace mystery Philip Yancey
828ad6c "Excuse me, Tex," the nurse said, hands on hips. 'Would you mind reining in the voice. There are babies being born in this hospital. We wouldn't want the first sound they hear to be your painful howling. There could be lawsuits." half-moon half-moon-investigations mystery Eoin Colfer
a163551 Holding her gaze, he sheathed his short sword and pulled the gauntlet off his left hand with his teeth. He held out his bare hand to her. She glanced at the proffered hand before laying her palm in his. Hot strength gripped her tightly as he pulled her upright before him, so close she would've had to move only inches to brush her lips across his throat. She watched the pulse of his blood beat there, strong and sure, before she lifted her gaze. His head was cocked almost as if he were examining her--searching for in her face. She drew in a breath, parting her lips to ask a question. duke-of-wakefield first-meeting ghost-of-st-giles maximus-batten duke-of-midnight hands mystery Elizabeth Hoyt
78f0782 Love is deep, a mystery - who wants to understand its every particular? mystery Michael Cunningham
ff32ec8 Have only this consolation--that he was never a fiend or even truly a madman, but only an eager, studious, and curious boy whose love of mystery and of the past was his undoing. He stumbled on things no mortal ought ever to know, and reached back through the years as no one ever should reach; and something came out of those years to engulf him. madness past undoing study mystery obsession H.P. Lovecraft
5b441e8 There are considerable mysteries surrounding the strange values that Nature's actual particles have for their mass and charge. For example, there is the unexplained 'fine structure constant' ... governing the strength of electromagnetic interactions, .... science fine-structure-constant mystery physics Roger Penrose
f7b5b1b Trust no one. You may be working with the last honest cop in Mexicali, but why bet your life on it? mystery Michael Connelly
cc1f55d You don't like what you see out your window, you put up a wall. mystery Michael Connelly
c38835d All his life Bosch had lived and worked in society's institutions. But he hope he had escaped institutional thinking, that he made his own decisions. mystery Michael Connelly
e6e51cf The problem with the so-called bloody surveillance state is that it's hard work trying to track someone's movements using CCTV - especially if they're on foot. Part of the problem is that the cameras all belong to different people for different reasons. Westminster Council has a network for traffic violations, the Oxford Street Trading Association has a huge network aimed at shop-lifters and pickpockets, individual shops have their own systems, as do pubs, clubs and buses. When you walk around London it is important to remember that Big Brother may be watching you, or he could be having a piss, or reading the paper or helping redirect traffic around a car accident or maybe he's just forgotten to turn the bloody thing on. fantasy cameras police-procedural security-cameras surveillance-society mystery Ben Aaronovitch
6cfa3ec You felt she'd done a thousand secret things to her eyes. They needed no haze of cigarette smoke to look at you out of sexy and fathomless, but carried their own along with them. New York must have been for her a city of smoke, its streets the courtyards of limbo, its bodies like wraiths. Smoke seemed to be in her voice, in her movements; making her all the more substantial, more there, as if words, glances, small lewdnesses could only become baffled and brought to rest like smoke in her long hair; remain there useless till she released them, accidentally and unknowingly, with a toss of her head. woman mysterious-woman mystery Thomas Pynchon
627e8e2 Lucy, you're as transparent as a pane of glass, and there's not a speck of guile to be seen in you. Yet in a way you're a mystery to me. mystery Madeleine Brent
f1f3c26 "In the forty minutes I watched the muskrat, he never saw me, smelled me, or heard me at all. When he was in full view of course I never moved except to breathe. My eyes would move, too, following his, but he never noticed. Only once, when he was feeding from the opposite bank about eight feet away did he suddenly rise upright, all alert- and then he immediately resumed foraging. But he never knew I was there. I never knew I was there, either. For that forty minutes last night I was as purely sensitive and mute as a photographic plate; I received impressions, but I did not print out captions. My own self-awareness had disappeared; it seems now almost as though, had I been wired to electrodes, my EEG would have been flat. I have done this sort of thing so often that I have lost self-consciousness about moving slowly and halting suddenly. And I have often noticed that even a few minutes of this self-forgetfulness is tremendously invigorating. I wonder if we do not waste most of our energy just by spending every waking minute saying hello to ourselves. Martin Buber quotes an old Hasid master who said, "When you walk across the field with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their souls come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
7879b53 I want to think about trees. Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can't think about them. I live with trees. There are creatures under our feet, creatures that live over our heads, but trees live quite convincingly in the same filament of air we inhabit, and in addition, they extend impressively in both directions, up and down, shearing rock and fanning air, doing their real business just out of reach. fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching trees growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
9b573e9 "The color-patches of vision part, shift, and reform as I move through space in time. The present is the object of vision, and what I see before me at any given second is a full field of color patches scattered just so. The configuration will never be repeated. Living is moving; time is a live creek bearing changing lights. As I move, or as the world moves around me, the fullness of what I see shatters. "Last forever!" Who hasn't prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying; it is a canvas, nevertheless. But there is more to the present than a series of snapshots. We are not merely sensitized film; we have feelings, a memory for information and an eidetic memory for the imagery of our pasts. Our layered consciousness is a tiered track for an unmatched assortment of concentrically wound reels. Each one plays out for all of life its dazzle and blur of translucent shadow-pictures; each one hums at every moment its own secret melody in its own unique key. We tune in and out. But moments are not lost. Time out of mind is time nevertheless, cumulative, informing the present. From even the deepest slumber you wake with a jolt- older, closer to death, and wiser, grateful for breath. But time is the one thing we have been given, and we have been given to time. Time gives us a whirl. We keep waking from a dream we can't recall, looking around in surprise, and lapsing back, for years on end. All I want to do is stay awake, keep my head up, prop my eyes open, with toothpicks, with trees." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
267293c Vivant sans souffle, Froid comme la mort, Jamais assoiffe, toujours buvant, En cotte de mailles, jamais cliquetant. (Le poisson) riddle mystery J.R.R. Tolkien
86c0744 The colour of the magpie, her father was saying, was symbolic of creation. The void, the mystery of that which had not yet taken form. Black and white, he said. Presence and absence. life magpie void mystery Kate Mosse
c311feb There are no secrets, there is no mystery. We make that all up. In fact, it's all right there in front of us. You have to have enough food to get through winter and spring. That's what it all comes down to. You have to live in a way that will gather enough food each fall to get through winter. winter spring mystery Kim Stanley Robinson
271b6a4 She was a cute as a washtub. film-noir mystery Raymond Chandler
3306736 "I watched the enormity of the clouds for several minutes. What I wanted to experience in the water, I realized, was how life of the reef was layered and intertwined. I now had many individual pieces at hand: named images, nouns. How were they related? What were the verbs? Which syntaxes were indigenous to the place? I asked a dozen knowledgeable people. No one was inclined to elaborate- or they didn't know. "Did you see the octopus?" Someone shouted after the dive. Yes, I thought, but who among us knows what it was doing? What else was THERE, just then? WHY?" diving reefs mystery ocean Barry Lopez
2e215a8 Then someone within closed the door, shutting Norah out into the howling dust of the night. The clouds parted briefly to reveal the full moon's cold eye, then closed again. Wind seared over the pavilion's double roof, its voice rising to a shriek. Distantly, among the maze of walls, came the frenzied barking of hundreds of tiny dogs. As she drifted towards wakefulness, Norah could not tell whether it was the wind that she heard just at the end, or whether, within the dark hall, the girl had begun to scream. fiction mystery suspense Barbara Hambly
3c4bc95 You still awake?' asked the anesthetist. 'Nope,' I replied. half-moon half-moon-investigations mystery Eoin Colfer
31adbc9 "Pico Iyer: "And at some point, I thought, well, I've been really lucky to see many, many places. Now, the great adventure is the inner world, now that I've spent a lot of time gathering emotions, impressions, and experiences. Now, I just want to sit still for years on end, really, charting that inner landscape because I think anybody who travels knows that you're not really doing so in order to move around--you're traveling in order to be moved. And really what you're seeing is not just the Grand Canyon or the Great Wall but some moods or intimations or places inside yourself that you never ordinarily see when you're sleepwalking through your daily life. I thought, there's this great undiscovered terrain that Henry David Thoreau and Thomas Merton and Emily Dickinson fearlessly investigated, and I want to follow in their footsteps." enlightenment travel nature spirit humanity faith beauty wisdom inner-landscape mindfulness peace mystery introspection Krista Tippett
747e39b Though everyone in the bar knew who he was, no one asked him about the death, though one old man did rustle his newspaper suggestively. mystery Donna Leon
3222ff8 Already, Seattle is taking hold of her. She still holds Sedona in the dry tan of her skin and in her hair, but the fine mist of the Northwest is making its way to places she didn't know were parched. hotel-angeline mystery novel Susan Wiggs
18bae26 He began as a minor imitator of Fitzgerald, wrote a novel in the late twenties which won a prize, became dissatisfied with his work, stopped writing for a period of years. When he came back it was to BLACK MASK and the other detective magazines with a curious and terrible fiction which had never been seen before in the genre markets; Hart Crane and certainly Hemingway were writing of people on the edge of their emotions and their possibility but the genre mystery markets were filled with characters whose pain was circumstantial, whose resolution was through action; Woolrich's gallery was of those so damaged that their lives could only be seen as vast anticlimax to central and terrible events which had occurred long before the incidents of the story. Hammett and his great disciple, Chandler, had verged toward this more than a little, there is no minimizing the depth of their contribution to the mystery and to literature but Hammett and Chandler were still working within the devices of their category: detectives confronted problems and solved (or more commonly failed to solve) them, evil was generalized but had at least specific manifestations: Woolrich went far out on the edge. His characters killed, were killed, witnessed murder, attempted to solve it but the events were peripheral to the central circumstances. What I am trying to say, perhaps, is that Hammett and Chandler wrote of death but the novels and short stories of Woolrich *were* death. In all of its delicacy and grace, its fragile beauty as well as its finality. Most of his plots made no objective sense. Woolrich was writing at the cutting edge of his time. Twenty years later his vision would attract a Truffaut whose own influences had been the philosophy of Sartre, the French nouvelle vague, the central conception that nothing really mattered. At all. But the suffering. Ah, that mattered; that mattered quite a bit. dashiel-hammett detective detective-fiction detective-noir detective-novel detective-novels detective-stories ernest-hemingway f-scott-fitzgerald sartre francois-truffaut hart-crane jean-paul-sartre mystery-and-crime-drama mystery-suspense mystery-thriller raymond-chandler truffaut crime-thriller crime-fiction noir noir-fiction detectives mystery crime Barry N. Malzberg
1423062 ...the long blue shadows of afternoon advanced before me like cheerful ghosts of last summer's growth, dancing past the withered flower borders and the stiff hedges to fall at the feet of a stone nymph, her cascade of water frozen in her urn. jane-austen mystery Stephanie Barron
5533af9 "For, having begun to build their Tower of Babel without us, they will end in anthropophagy. And it is then that the beast will come crawling to us and lick our feet and spatter them with tears of blood from its eyes. And we shall sit upon the beast and raise the cup, and on it will be written: "Mystery!" science morality-without-religion mystery Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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