Retreating Quotes

1. "If I don't wear anything, I'd probably make the food go off, and the children run away screaming. What with all the scars and all. I'm not what one could call particularly pretty." Unlike you, Vadim, and your goddamned perfection, except for a word cut in blood and flesh.Vadim shook his head, already retreating towards the open door. "'Pretty' is different," he murmured. "'Pretty' has no scars. You are... Jaw muscles tensed again. "Like the morning sky in Afghanistan. Not ‘pretty'. Word's ‘breathtaking'."
Author: Aleksandr Voinov

2. "The wondrous moment of our meeting... Still I remember you appear Before me like a vision fleeting, A beauty's angel pure and clear. In hopeless ennui surrounding The worldly bustle, to my ear For long your tender voice kept sounding, For long in dreams came features dear. Time passed. Unruly storms confounded Old dreams, and I from year to year Forgot how tender you had sounded, Your heavenly features once so dear. My backwoods days dragged slow and quiet -- Dull fence around, dark vault above -- Devoid of God and uninspired, Devoid of tears, of fire, of love. Sleep from my soul began retreating, And here you once again appear Before me like a vision fleeting, A beauty's angel pure and clear. In ecstasy my heart is beating, Old joys for it anew revive; Inspired and God-filled, it is greeting The fire, and tears, and love alive."
Author: Alexander Pushkin

3. "I wonder: instead of retreating and hiding, instead of pining for the way it was, what if I accept the way it is? This strikes me as both the most obvious thing in the world and the most profound."
Author: Ann Kidd Taylor

4. "...You should make someone a wonderful husband." Even the tips of Jamie's ears were crimson now. But instead of retreating, he clenched his jaw and looked directly into her eyes. "I suppose I would," he said. "Are you interested?"
Author: Bruce Coville

5. "A glacier will frequently move forward one foot while retreating three feet... Which reminds me a lot of myself!"
Author: Charles M. Schulz

6. "Somebody pinch me."A man with a horrendously hairy chest and a Speedo so tight it was probably cutting off circulation passed by me at that moment, and did just that. I yelped and held a hand to my ass, gawking at his retreating back.Jenny laughed. "Maybe this place is magic, and whatever we say comes true. Ryan Gosling, please!"
Author: Cora Carmack

7. "And that day, I probably walked right by them out of class, not really knowing either of them or having any idea who they'd end up being to me, but I can imagine it so accurately because I was then (and I guess I am still) in my own world of misreading people, reaching out to them in an awkward, overplanned way that blows up big-time, then retreating back in to my just-me existence, while they go around telling anyone who will listen what a tard I am."
Author: D.C. Pierson

8. "...where were answers to the truly deep questions? Religion promised those, though always in vague terms, while retreating from one line in the sand to the next. Don't look past this boundary, they told Galileo, then Hutton, Darwin, Von Neumann, and Crick, always retreating with great dignity before the latest scientific advance, then drawing the next holy perimeter at the shadowy rim of knowledge."
Author: David Brin

9. "The sun sifted through the trees around the platform, and Blake stood proudly in its curtain of light. It would be retreating from him this time. He walked over to his old spot in the shade with victory in his step. He'd been trapped there for so long. He shook his head and returned to the sun's rays, amazed at how powerful that simple act made him feel."
Author: Debra Anastasia

10. "We're not retreating, we're advancing in reverse.' --Skulduggery Pleasant"
Author: Derek Landy

11. "We're just going to retreat?We are not retreating, we're advancing in reverse."
Author: Derek Landy

12. "And now, dear sister, I must leave this house or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it by filling up the road I am directed to take."
Author: Dolley Madison

13. "They cared for no one, they were outside humanity, and death, had it come, would only have continued their pursuit of a retreating horizon."
Author: E.M. Forster

14. "In other countries, congenital introverts simply remain introverts all their lives, neither advancing nor retreating, but America's commitment to extroversion as a national art form can abrade some naturally aloof personalities until they flower into deadly nightshade."
Author: Florence King

15. "Festivals and fasts are unhinged, traveling backward at a rate of ten days per year, attached to no season. Even Laylat ul Qadr, the holiest night in Ramadan, drifts--its precise date is unknown. The iconclasm laid down by Muhammed was absolute: you must resist attachment not only to painted images, but to natural ones. Ramadan, Muharram, the Eids; you associate no religious event with the tang of snow in the air, or spring thaw, or the advent of summer. God permeates these things--as the saying goes, Allah is beautiful, and He loves beauty--but they are transient. Forced to concentrate on the eternal, you begin to see, or think you see, the bones and sinews of the world beneath its seasonal flesh. The sun and moon become formidable clockwork. They are transient also, but hint at the dark planes that stretch beyond the earth in every direction, full of stars and dust, toward a retreating, incomprehensible edge"
Author: G. Willow Wilson

16. "The unnatural beast plummeted to the ground, vainly attempting to keep his entrails in and put out the fire that covered him. Morfyd spewed another spell at the retreating form and Hefaidd-Hen burst into pieces.Fearghus glanced at his sister. "That was a bit much, don't you think?"She gave an innocent shrug. "I like to be certain."
Author: G.A. Aiken

17. "Some instinct made her lift her hand and cup his cheek with her fingers. The room was too dark for her to see him, but she could feel the stickiness of the blood, and a wetness that was not blood. "Little bird," he said once more, his voice raw and harsh as steel on stone. Then he rose from the bed. Sansa heard cloth ripping, followed by the softer sound of retreating footsteps.When she crawled out of bed, long moments later, she was alone. She found his cloak on the floor, twisted up tight, the white wool stained by blood and fire. The sky outside was darker by then, with only a few pale green ghosts dancing against the stars. A chill wind was blowing, banging the shutters. Sansa was cold. She shook out the torn cloak and huddled beneath it on the floor, shivering."
Author: George R.R. Martin

18. "Retreating from the world will not liberate you. Happiness is not found in a secluded forest hut or an isolated cave. Enlightenment comes when you connect to the world. Only when you truly connect with everyone and everything else do you become enlightened. Only by going deeply and fully into the world do you attain liberation."
Author: Guo Jun

19. "Whoa, son," said Atticus. "Nobody's about to make you go anywhere but to bed pretty soon. I'm just going over to tell Miss Rachel you're here and ask her if you could spend the night with us—you'd like that, wouldn't you? And for goodness' sake put some of the county back where it belongs, the soil erosion's bad enough as it is." Dill stared at my father's retreating figure. "He's tryin‘ to be funny," I said. "He means take a bath. See there, I told you he wouldn't bother you."
Author: Harper Lee

20. "Bodies disengaged, our mouths are fleshing over. It's just an echo game, irises retreating to ovals of white. The urge to feel your face, and blood rushing to paint my handprint. A Frisbee one by one; your vinyl on lamanent, just prefer some kind of contact."
Author: Imogen Heap

21. "The sky was a cold iron-grey, like the underside of a shield. A sharp breeze lifted the hems of skirts and rattled the leaves on the immature trees; a spiteful, chill wind that sought out your weakest places, the nape of your neck and your knees, and which denied you the comfort of dreaming, of retreating a little from reality."
Author: J.K. Rowling

22. "Karkaroff intends to flee if the Mark burns.""Does he?" said Dumbledore softly, as Fleur Delacour and Roger Davies came giggling in from the grounds. "And are you tempted to join him?""No," said Snape, his black eyes on Fleur's and Roger's retreating figures. "I am not such a coward.""No," agreed Dumbledore. You are a braver man by far than Igot Karkaroff. You know, I sometimes think we Sort too soon..."He walked away, leaving Snape looking stricken."
Author: J.K. Rowling

23. "Hermione, will you please —""Don't you tell me what to do, Harry Potter!" she screeched. "Don't you dare! Give it back now! And YOU!"She was pointing at Ron in dire accusation: It was like a malediction, and Harry could not blame Ron for retreating several steps."
Author: J.K. Rowling

24. "Do you love him?" I jumped out of my skin. She was standing right beside me. "Who?" Her eyes widened. "Seth?" I peered over my shoulder at his retreating back. "Um, we've been going together for a long time. A year." "That's not what I asked." I couldn't look at her. Couldn't risk her seeing through me, reading me."Do you hear bells?" she asked. I had to smile at that. "Bells?" "You know, bells. Music, fireworks." She wiggled her eyebrows. I let out a short laugh. It sounded strangled, same way I felt. "Only in my dreams." "Oh, yeah?" She arched an eyebrow. Why did I say that? God. Cece said softly, "Maybe you should listen to your dreams." My stomach suffered a major eruption. She pushed off the locker she'd been balancing against with the sole of her shoe and said, "Think about it." Like I haven't been. "Do you think about it?" I asked at her back. She stopped and turned around. "I don't have to. I know." (Chapter13)"
Author: Julie Anne Peters

25. "Conflicts like competitive races are zero sum games, meaning that there is one winner and one loser. This also means that the winner will win at theexpense of the loser. If there is no engagement because one party to the conflict has retreated, the remaining party will only consume resources andcreate opportunities for inner discord among its own members by not also retreating."
Author: Kambiz Mostofizadeh

26. "The judge got down on his knees, and he prayed to God, he, Jemubhai Popatlal the agnostic, who had made a long hard journey to jettison his family's prayers; he who had refused to throw the coconut into the water and bless his own voyage all those years ago on the deck of the SS Strath-naver."If you return Mutt, I will acknowledge you in public, I will never deny you again, I will tell the world that I believe in you – you – if you return Mutt – "Then he got up. He was undoing his education, retreating to the superstitious man making bargains, offering sacrifices, gambling with fate, cajoling, daring whatever was out there -Show me if you exist!Or else I will know you are nothing.Nothing! Nothing! – taunting it."
Author: Kiran Desai

27. "Pierre looked into the sky, into the depths of the retreating, twinkling stars. "And all this is mine, and all this is in me, and all this is me!" thought Pierre. "And all this they've caught and put in a shed and boarded it up!"
Author: Leo Tolstoy

28. "Lovers' language, give me an exact and poetic comparison to say what those eyes of Capitu were like. No image comes to mind that doesn't offend against the rules of good style, to say what they were and what they did to me. Undertow eyes? Why not? Undertow. That's the notion that the new expression put in my head. They held some kind of mysterious, active fluid, a force that dragged one in, like the undertow of a wave retreating from the shore on stormy days. So as not to be dragged in, I held onto anything around them, her ears, her arms, her hair spread about her shoulders; but as soon as I returned to the pupils of her eyes again, the wave emerging from them grew towards me, deep and dark, threatening to envelop me, draw me in and swallow me up."
Author: Machado De Assis

29. "Pretty stupid," I called after his retreating form. "To give up before all possible solutions have been tried."
Author: Maria V. Snyder

30. "The Sea of FaithWas once, too, at the full, and round earth's shoreLay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.But now I only hearIts melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,Retreating, to the breathOf the night-wind, down the vast edges drearAnd naked shingles of the world."
Author: Matthew Arnold

31. "You're an English major, aren't you?" "Hey!" Immediately retreating, Keith swatted at him with a dishcloth. "Leave my brain alone. It's resting." "Sorry, sorry." He leaned away, hands up to display his surrender. "I didn't mean it, I take it back." "You'd better"
Author: Matthew Haldeman Time

32. "With what characters she had filled this lost stage of emptiness! It was here that she would see the people of her imagination, the fierce figures of her making, as they strolled from corner to corner, brooded like monsters or flew through the air like seraphs with burning wings, or danced, or fought, or laughed, or cried. This was her attic of make-believe, where she would watch her mind's companions advancing or retreating across the dusty floor."
Author: Mervyn Peake

33. "Let me lose everything on earth and the world beyond, but let me not lose what I'm craving for, let it be that i died on the way than retreating from getting it."
Author: Michael Bassey Johnson

34. "And so when the scar wraith approached him, he took a diagonal step backward putting himself behind Squirrel like a king retreating behind a pawn."
Author: Neal Shusterman

35. "Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit."
Author: Norman Mailer

36. "Sure deck your lower limbs in pants; Yours are the limbs, my sweeting. You look divine as you advance– Have you seen yourself retreating?"
Author: Ogden Nash

37. "I swoon into a standing eight count. Goddamn, I actually feel my consciousness want to detach and hide like a turtle retreating into a hopelessly soft shell that won't save anyone."
Author: Paul Tremblay

38. "We ought instead of retreating should follow up the enemy and take Richmond. And in full view of all responsible for such declaration, I say to you all, such an order can only be prompted by cowardice or treason."
Author: Philip Kearny

39. "Take notes my love," Trik pointed at Syndra's retreating form. "That is why she is Queen."Cassie nodded. "Got it. Note to self: Successful Queen equals bitch." "I heard that," Syndra yelled.Cassie gave Trik a high five. "You're well on your way, beautiful," he told her with a wink."
Author: Quinn Loftis

40. "Knowing I wasn't going anywhere, I frantically searched for some way to help her. A dark figure caught my eye. "Christian!" I yelled. He'd been staring at Lissa's retreating figure but glanced up at the sound of his name.One of my escorts shushed me and took my arm. "Be quiet."I ignored her. "Go after her," I called to Christian. "Hurry."He just sat there, and I suppressed a groan."Go, you idiot!"My guardians snapped at me to be quiet again, but something inside of Christian woke up. Springing up from his lounging position, he tore off in the direction Lissa had traveled."
Author: Richelle Mead

41. "When he first put his arms around me, it was tentative, like maybe he expectedI'd pull away. When Ididn't, he moved in closer, his hands smoothing over my shoulders, and in mymind I saw myselfretreating a million times when people tried to do this same thing: my sister ormy mother, pulling backand into myself, tucking everything out of sight, where only I knew where tofind it. This time, though, Igave in. I let Wes pull me against him, pressing my head against his chest,where I could feel his heartbeating, steady and true."
Author: Sarah Dessen

42. "The Castle. He'd seen this expression far too many times during their marriage. The Castle was Bryony drawing up the gates and retreating deep into the inner keep. And he'd always hated it. Marriage meant that you shared your goddamn castle. You didn't leave your poor knight of a husband circling the walls trying to find a way in."
Author: Sherry Thomas

43. "Even they would think you a monster were you toorchestrate a divorce right after my confinement.""How long do you recommend I wait, then?""A long time. I know what happens when a divorce is granted:The woman never gets anything. And I will not be parted from my child.""So you will contest the divorce?""To my last penny. And then I'll borrow from Fitz and Millie.""So we'll be married 'til the end of time?""The sooner you accept it, the sooner we are all better off."His ancestors would have appreciated her hauteur: a fit wife for a de Montfort. "Now if you'll excuse me, I must have enough rest."He gazed at her retreating back. Foolish woman, did she not realize that he'd already accepted it from the moment he'd said "I do"?"
Author: Sherry Thomas

44. "That was on the pillar stone on Ynys Bainail," I said, indicating the carving. "What does it mean?""It is Mor Cylch, the maze of life," Tegid told me. "It is trodden with just enough light to see the next step or two ahead, but not more. At each turn the soul must decide whether to journey on or whether to go back the way it came.""What if the soul does not journey on? What if it chooses to go back the way it came?""Stagnation and death," replied Tegid with mild vehemence. He seemed irritated that anyone would consider retreating."And if the soul travels on?""It draws nearer its destination," the bard answered. "The ultimate destination of all souls is the Heart of the Heart."
Author: Stephen R. Lawhead

45. "This is a hard question. But as women we have a right to ask the hard questions. The only way I have ever understood, broken free, emerged, healed, forgiven, flourished, and grown powerful is by asking the hardest questions and then living into the answers through opening up to my own terror and transmuting it into creativity. I have gotten nowhere by retreating into hand-me-down sureties or resisting the tensions that truth ignited."
Author: Sue Monk Kidd

46. "It was enough to make me feel like retreating into some wooded or snowy clime, where only the most determined photographers or Mary-hunters might find me."
Author: Tara Altebrando

47. "A conclusion I've come to at the Idler is that it starts with retreating from work but it's really about making work into something that isn't drudgery and slavery, and then work and life can become one thing."
Author: Tom Hodgkinson

48. "Courage was mine, and I had mystery,Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:To miss the march of this retreating worldInto vain citadels that are not walled."
Author: Wilfred Owen

49. "Rome has been called the "Sacred City": - might not our Oxford be called so too? There is an air about it, resonant of joy and hope: it speaks with a thousand tongues to the heart: it waves its mighty shadow over the imagination: it stands in lowly sublimity, on the "hill of ages"; and points with prophetic fingers to the sky: it greets the eager gaze from afar, "with glistering spires and pinnacles adorned," that shine with an internal light as with the lustre of setting suns; and a dream and a glory hover round its head, as the spirits of former times, a throng of intellectual shapes, are seen retreating or advancing to the eye of memory: its streets are paved with the names of learning that can never wear out: its green quadrangles breathe the silence of thought."
Author: William Hazlitt

50. "For me, beauty is always retreating from one's grasp: the only thing I consider important is what existed once, or ought to have existed."
Author: Yukio Mishima

Retreating Quotes Pictures