Rib Cage Quotes

1. "You can die of a broken heart -- it's scientific fact -- and my heart has been breaking since that very first day we met. I can feel it now, aching deep behind my rib cage the way it does every time we're together, beating a desperate rhythm: Love me. Love me. Love me."
Author: Abby McDonald

2. "You drew a bird that was here, a kind of sweet chanticleer. But with a terrible fear that the cage couldn't tame"
Author: Aimee Mann

3. "No", she wanted to say. " I don't want you to care for me, I want to be with my husband." But nothing came out. She turned beseeching her eyes to Darcy and she saw him as if from a great distance, through a distorting glass, but his words were firm and clear. "She has no taste for your company," he said."No?" said the gentleman. "But I have a taste for her."Hers, thought Elizabeth. He should have said hers."Let her go," said Darcy warningly."Why should I?" asked the gentleman."Because she is mine," said Darcy.The gentleman turned his full attention toward Darcy and Elizabeth followed his eyes.And then she saw something that made her heart thump against her rib cage and her mind collapse as she witnessed something so shocking and so terrifying that the ground came up to meet her as everything went black."
Author: Amanda Grange

4. "He was not used to the smell of dragon breath, which is best described as a combination of the stench of burning rubber and the stink of old socks, with overtones of a hamster cage in dire need of a cleaning."
Author: Angie Sage

5. "I wished to no longer hear the grayed bones crunching underneath the brush or feel the now inexorable fear that seemed to work its way inside my rib cage, rocking me at my core."
Author: Anna Carey

6. "Jaenelle peered into the space between the chair arms. "Saetan?" she said in a small, quivery voice. "Saetan, are you all right?" Using Craft, Saetan sent the top chair back to the blackwood desk. "I'm fine, witch-child." He stuffed his feet into his shoes and gingerly stood up. "That's the most excitement I've had in centuries." "Really?" He straightened his black tunic-jacket and smoothed back his hair. "Yes, really." And Guardian or not, a man his age shouldn't have his heart gallop around his rib cage like this. Saetan looked around the study and stifled a groan."
Author: Anne Bishop

7. "Children can be disgusting, and often they can develop extraordinary talents, but I'm yet to meet any child who can stimulate his carotid arteries inside his ribcage."
Author: Ben Goldacre

8. "The room had disappeared for me and all I could see and feel was him. Our laughter had stopped at the same time and my senses could keenly hear our breathing. For once I felt I couldn't decipher the look in his eyes as they searched my face. I felt the words were written all over my face, and I wondered what he was looking for. I wanted him to find it in me because I had found everything in him. My heart hammered against my rib cage, threatening to implode, as his lips reached for mine. I could feel his sweet breath washing over my lips like a tease."
Author: Cassandra Giovanni

9. "Long ago, long ago. The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward."
Author: Colum McCann

10. "And that feeling, that attachment I'd felt to him was no longer a hook, but an anchor buried deep in my rib cage."
Author: Cora Carmack

11. "They say a man's inspiration is visual, but for a woman, it's the narrative. Abandon both the narrative and the visual. Close your eyes, measure your breath. Dead weight is sloughed off, dust swept away, forms dissolve into one atmosphere. The rib cage opens, the lungs fill, the breast rises. Waves sweep up the body on their swell, rocking it rhythmically. Feet planted, the back arches, the pelvis reaches forward. Oxygen kindles a flame, sprawling through the belly, and gathering in a warm blaze. The hand reaches to meet the sensation. Calligraphy spills from the inkwell. Open your eyes, sharpen your focus, and exclaim: There are no separations."
Author: Craig Thompson

12. "With all these occurrences of death facing me, I thought about issues of freedom. If government projects the idea that we, as people inhabiting this particular land mass, have freedom, the for the rest of our lives we will go out and find what appear to be the boundaries and smack against them like a heart against the rib cage. If we reveal boundaries in the course of our movements, then we will expose the inherent lie in the use of the word freedom. I want to keep breathing and moving until I arrive at a place where motion and strength and relief intersect. I don't know what's ahead of me in the course of my life and this civilization. I just don't feel I have reached the necessary things inside my history that would ease the pressure in my skull and in my future and in my present. It is exhausting, living in a population where people don't speak up if what they witness doesn't directly threaten them."
Author: David Wojnarowicz

13. "Our little tribal circles, bound by social contracts and selfish mutual need. Everyone working in their own greedy self-interests and huddling together with their tribe, at war with all those outside who they regard as barely human. What breaks a human mind out of that iron cage of mistrust, is a sacrifice. The martyr who gives up everything, who abandons all personal gain, who lays down his life for the good of those outside his group. He becomes a symbol all can rally around. So instead of trying to make a selfish, violent primate somehow empathize with the whole world, which is impossible, you only need to get him to remember and love the martyr. As one is forgotten, another must replace it."
Author: David Wong

14. "He gestured Arthur toward a chair which looked as if it had been made out of the rib cage of a stegosaurus. "It was made out of the rib cage of a stegosaurus,"
Author: Douglas Adams

15. "Someone asked me what home was and all I could think of were the stars on the tip of your tongue, the flowers sprouting from your mouth, the roots entwined in the gaps between your fingers, the ocean echoing inside of your ribcage."
Author: E.E. Cummings

16. "God's terrible face brighter than a spoon collects the image of one fatal word;so that my life(which liked the sun and the moon)resembles something that has not occurred:i am a birdcage without any bird a collar looking for a dog a kisswithout lips;a prayer lacking any kneesbut something beats within my shirt to provehe is undead who living noone is.I have never loved you dear as now i love."
Author: E.E. Cummings

17. "De Montaigne described marriage as much like a cage full of birds, where the unmarried struggle to get in and the married struggle to get out."
Author: Fiona Paul

18. "Jake shuts the van's back doors and lies down next to me. He's really close, so close I can feel him breathing on the nape of my neck. I could put more space between us, but instead I scoot backward, leaning into him, my back pressed into the pleasant warmth of his front. Jake holds his breath for a moment, but he doesn't say anything. And he doesn't move away.... He moves so his mouth is right under my ear, brushing the skin there, and one of his hands slides up, resting on my rib cage. My whole body tingles as he starts to sing softly into my ear."
Author: Hannah Harrington

19. "A strange, terrific force unlike anything I've ever experienced is sprouting in my heart, taking root there, growing. Shut up behind my rib cage, my warm heart expands and contracts independent of my will--over and over."
Author: Haruki Murakami

20. "He once thought it himself, that he might die with grief: for his wife, his daughters, his sisters, his father and master the cardinal. But pulse, obdurate, keeps its rhythm. You think you cannot keep breathing, but your ribcage has other ideas, rising and falling, emitting sighs. You must thrive in spite of yourself; and so that you may do it, God takes out your heart of flesh, and gives you a heart of stone."
Author: Hilary Mantel

21. "I crush her against me. I want to be part of her. Not just inside her but all around her. I want our rib cages to crack open and our hearts to migrate and merge. I want our cells to braid together like living thread."
Author: Isaac Marion

22. "Love is the most precious gift you could ever possibly hope to steal. Some women foolishly do not leave their rib cages locked at night."
Author: Jarod Kintz

23. "All of a sudden, inviting Jeremy up to my room seemed like a terrible idea. I wanted him too much. My desire for him was like a thing separate from me, a wild animal with a mind of its own, attacking the bars of the cage I kept it in, looking for a weak spot." from Struck"
Author: Jennifer Bosworth

24. "Oliver's heart tried to pound its way out of his ribcage, but he ignored it. "I'm in love with Petunia," he announced. "And I want to help her."
Author: Jessica Day George

25. "But I do go in for books. I love to own books. Though I read few books twice, I have filled every shelf in my house with books, have had more shelves made and filled those too. My books surround me like a cocoon. When I run my finger along the backs of my books they feel like the ribcage of an old familiar lover. Visit my shelves and you will learn much about me."
Author: Joe Bennett

26. "I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others—the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad."
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer

27. "Talking to a therapist, I thought, was like taking your clothes off and then taking your skin off, and then having the other person say, "Would you mind opening up your rib cage so that we can start?"
Author: Julie Schumacher

28. "I'll never let you go is scrawled three inches long down the side of my ribcage. The skin is still an angry red color, puffy and irritated looking. My gaze drifts up to Colin's in the mirror. I suck in a sharp breath as I'm caught up in a tornado of emotion. He has the same thing on his arm. They are simple, black ink only, but the meaning of the words are anything but."
Author: K. Larsen

29. "I can see he thinks he's the ultimate creation, and he seems to believe every woman here is his Eve, created from his ribcage for him to enjoy. I'm both aroused and infuriated, and this is the most confusing feeling I've ever felt in my life." Brooke Dumas, REAL"
Author: Katy Evans

30. "Without wonder, you are dead and I am older. The girl in the mirror looks devastated. Like someone really has pushed a brick through her ribcage."
Author: Kirsty Eagar

31. "In the mirror I stand, an injured deer in headlights, or maybe high beams, judging by the way my eyes water. I measure my wrists with my fingers, and I clutch at my rib cage, fingering it languidly, tracing the rise and fall of sharp bones until my heartbeat slows, and I dream of a faraway ocean."
Author: Kris Kidd

32. "Remembering this, he feels the old, hot prickle in his eyes. He thinks, Yes. But it vanishes. His angry heart calls for his attention, a fist on the door of his ribcage, beating."
Author: Lauren Groff

33. "I think of the quietness of Julian's voice as he said I love you, the steadiness of his rib cage rising and falling against my back, as we sleep.I love you, Julian. But the words don't come."
Author: Lauren Oliver

34. "What did I expect, that you would wrap my rib cage with those enormous hands in which horses must be measured, lifting me overhead with the stern reproach that is every Western woman's sly delight, "You're too thin"?"
Author: Lionel Shriver

35. "The imprint left on her mind by the long famished body that had seemed in the darkness to consist of nothing by sharp crags and angles, the memory of its painfully-defined almost skeletal ribcage, a pattern of ridges like a washboard, was fading as rapidly as any other transient impression on a soft surface."
Author: Margaret Atwood

36. "The boy squirmed, long skinny legs wrapped round each other, rib-cage twisted ninety degrees from his hips in what appeared to be an impossible configuration of limbs. His elbows jutted out abruptly from his sides like some sort of drafting error and (independently aware of their awkwardness) his arms wound themselves round his torso like vines."
Author: Meg Rosoff

37. "A 5'5", 182-pound, 43-year-old man wearing khaki shorts and a UCLA sweatshirt runs to Nicolas Cage in a manner he will spend the rest of the night describing to his slightly bored but equally boring date as "ambushing." No one else is on the street and Nicolas Cage is unable to avoid the man, who wants a picture with his "brand new Droid." As the man, who actually seems to be vibrating and hovering in an almost hummingbird-like way, adjusts his stance for the third attempt at a picture his crotch lightly brushes Nicolas Cage's upper thigh, causing his face to shift from "bemused resignation" to, strangely, "serene bliss," for what will become the man's inaugural Facebook profile picture."
Author: Megan Boyle

38. "I gasp.All around me, the dead are risin.Another leg bone bobs to the muddy surface. Then a skull. A arm bone. They swing lazily. The current grabs 'em an carries 'em away.Wreckers must of used the dry riverbed as a mass grave an now the heavy rain's churnin it all up.I snatch my hands from the water, hold my arms high, outta the way. Slowly I turn in a circle, blinkin the rain away from my eyes.Ohmigawd, I says. Ohmigawd ohmigawd ohmigawd.The river's alive with dead men's bones. It's thick with 'em.My breath's comin shallow an fast.I feel somethin touch me. I make myself look down. A skellenton's wrapped itself around my chest. The skull grins up at me.I shove it away. But when I pull my hands up agin, the whole top half of the skellenton comes with 'em. I'm stuck in the ribcage. The skull's right in my face.I scream. Shake myself loose. Scramble to git away. Lose my footin.I fall. I go unner.An the current sweeps me away."
Author: Moira Young

39. "I was literally seeing stars, and every ragged breath I took felt like I was trying to breathe through broken glass.On the upside, my crush on Archer was totally gone. Over. Once a boy has slammed his kneecap into your rib cage, I think any romantic feeling should naturally go the way of the ghost."
Author: Rachel Hawkins

40. "Birthdays were wretched, delicious things when you lived in Beau Rivage. The clock stuck midnight, and presents gave way to magic.Curses bloomed.Girls bit into sharp apples instead of birthday cake, chocked on the ruby-and-white slivers, and collapsed into enchanted sleep. Unconscious beneath cobweb canopies, frozen in coffins of glass, they waited for their princes to come. Or they tricked ogres, traded their voices for love, danced until their glass slippers cracked.A prince would awaken, roused by the promise of true love, and find he had a witch to destroy. A heart to steal. To tear from the rib cage, where it was cushioned by bloody velvet, and deliver it to the queen who demanded the princess's death. Girls became victims and heroines.Boys became lovers and murderers.And sometimes... they became both."
Author: Sarah Cross

41. "At night, in the garden, it occurs to you that it might have been your heart that left you as you reached the capital. Your heart might not have travelled well, closed up in its cavity, quivering and gnawing at the bars of your ribcage during the commute. It might be tracking north now, along edgelands, past spoil-heaps and stands of pylons, under motorway passes, back to the higher ground. Back to him."
Author: Sarah Hall

42. "She delivered a vicious blow, penetrating his rib cage, and withdrew her hand — with the ninja's still-beating heart in it. As all but Lady Catherine turned away in disgust, Elizabeth took a bite, letting the blood run down her chin and onto her sparring gown. "Curious," said Elizabeth, still chewing. "I have tasted many a heart, but I dare say, I find the Japanese ones a bit tender."Her ladyship left the dojo without giving compliment to Elizabeth's skills."
Author: Seth Grahame Smith

43. "I'm going to arrange you, if that's okay?"I swallowed. "Uh... sure." My hands were clutched to my ribcage, my shoulders hunched almost to my ears. What, this isn't how you want me positioned?"
Author: Tammara Webber

44. "Why did you come back here, then? Why risk it? Couldn't you find a place where you wouldn't have any other Packs to deal with?"He cupped my face in his hands, his thumb gently brushing a snowflake from my eyelashes."You know why I came back."My heart started beating against my ribcage as if it was trying to break free. "The fried chicken they serve at The Farmhouse?""I came back for you, Scout."I had to say something. Something clever. Something dazzling. Something to make this moment perfect."I hope the snow sticks."
Author: Tammy Blackwell

45. "He lives down in a ribcage in the dry leaves of a heart."
Author: Thomas Harris

46. "Teach me how to love you so goodour hearts will be beatingthunderouslyagainst our ribcagesstraining to get out.For so long I have only knownhow to hurt.There are scars on my body likeconstellations. The one on my hip was from when I was sixand I learned my parents were the Titanic and the iceberg.My wrist has a faint bruisereminding me of when I gave myselfto a boy who crashed and burnedand took me down with him.Heartbreak sounds a lot likea slamming door.Show me it doesn't have to be this way,I want to be proven wrong.Teach me how to love right."
Author: Tina Tran

47. "Four wanders through the crowd of initiates, watching us as we go through the movements again. When he stops in front of me, my insides twist like someone is stirring them with a fork. He stares at me, his eyes following my body from my head to my feet, not lingering anywhere - a practical, scientific gaze."You don't have much muscle", he says, "which means you're better off using your knees and elbows. You can put more power behind them."Suddenly he presses a hand to my stomach. His fingers are so long that, though the heel of his hand touches one side of my rib cage, his fingertips still touch the other side. My heart pounds so hard my chest hurts, and I stare at him, wide-eyed."Never forget to keep tension here", he says in a quiet voice.Four lifts his hand and keeps walking. I feel the pressure of his palm even after he's gone. It's strange, but I have to stop and breathe for a few seconds before I can keep practicing again."
Author: Veronica Roth

48. "I have stayed these years in my hovel because of you. I have taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. I have lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn you might glance in my direction. I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids."
Author: William Goldman

49. "I suspect if we were as familiar with our bones as with our skin, we'd never bury dead but shrine them in their rooms, arranged as we might like to find them on a visit; and our enemies, if we could steal their bodies from the battle sites, would be museumed as they died, the steel still eloquent in their sides, their metal hats askew, the protective toes of their shoes unworn, and friend and enemy would be so wondrously historical that in a hundred years we'd find the jaws still hung for the same speech and all the parts we spent our life with titled as they always were - rib cage, collar, skull - still repetitious, still defiant, angel light, still worthy of memorial and affection. After all, what does it mean to say that when our cat has bitten through the shell and put confusion in the pulp, the life goes out of them? Alas for us, I want to cry, our bones are secret, showing last, so we must love what perishes: the muscles and the waters and the fats."
Author: William H. Gass

Rib Cage Quotes Pictures