Cave Quotes

“If you feel like you don't fit into the world you inherited it is because you were born to help create a new one.”
― Ross Caligiuri, Dreaming in the Shadows

“To completely understand me you must first accept that I am not you.”
― Ross Caligiuri, Dreaming in the Shadows

“Dex was taller than me, and as he pressed me against him, he actually hauled me up on my tiptoes. His arm was around my waist, his other hand plunged into my hair, and he was kissing me. I mean, really, really kissing me.
I was kissing him back. And I was good at it.”
― Rachel Hawkins, School Spirits

“Whoever used to hang out here, they must have been pretty tiny," I joked.
Dex turned his flashlight on me. "Um, Iz, pretty sure they weren't standing up," he said, and I blushed.”
― Rachel Hawkins, School Spirits

“Dex leveled a fake-sultry gaze at me. "Are you coming on to me?”
― Rachel Hawkins, School Spirits

“My dream is to create something so beautiful that it encourages people to present the best version of themselves to me everywhere I go.”
― Ross Caligiuri

“Every decision you make in life will stem from one of two options: love or fear. Choose love.”
― Ross Caligiuri

“Plato said that we are trapped inside a cave and know the world only through the shadows it casts on the wall. The skull is our cave, and mental representations are the shadows.”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“Eternity will not cause our memories to fade, it will force our hearts to accept the past.”
― Ross Caligiuri, Dreaming in the Shadows

“To struggle against the weight of sleep as reality eclipses the moon of your dreams is the purest sign of true love.”
― Ross Caligiuri, Dreaming in the Shadows

“I crave the violence of your affection. I ache for the way it jumbles my insides and makes my heart feel like it's harboring a thunderstorm. I've never felt more alive in all my time on this earth, as I have, being underneath your touch.”
― LeAnne Mechelle, Write like no one is reading 2

“That's the thing about rocks--they don't break easily. When I held them, I wanted to be like them-strong and steady, weathered but not broken.”
― Ellen Dreyer, The Glow Stone

“Cherish your existence, for memories become legacies and life can change in an instant.”
― Ross Caligiuri

“In 1988, a cave explorer named Véronique Le Guen volunteered for an extreme experiment: to live alone in an underground cavern in southern France without a clock for one hundred and eleven days, monitored by scientists who wished to study the human body's natural rhythms in the absence of time cues. For a while, she settled into a pattern of thirty hours awake and twenty hours asleep. She described herself as being "psychologically completely out of phase, where I no longer know what my values are or what is my purpose in life."
When she returned to society, her husband later noted, she seemed to have an emptiness inside her that she was unable to fully express. "While I was alone in my cave I was my own judge," she said. "You are your own most severe judge. You must never lie or all is lost. The strongest sentiment I brought out of the cave is that in my life I will never tolerate lying." A little more than a year later, Le Guen swallowed an overdose of barbiturates and lay down in her car in Paris, a suicide at age thirty-three.”
― Michael Finkel, The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

“His booted feet pounded out an insane, frantic rhythm underneath him as he raced into the cavern across from Baba Yaga’s den at a dead sprint. Pieces of dragon dung flew off him and hit the ground behind him in miniature chunks. He didn’t dare look behind him to see if the dragon had risen from the ground yet, but the deafening hiss that assaulted his ears meant she’d woken up. Icy claws of fear squeezed his heart with every breath as he ran, relying on the night vision goggles, the glimpse he’d gotten of the map, and his own instincts to figure out where to go.
Jack raced around one corner too sharply and slipped on a piece of dung, crashing hard on his right side. He gasped as it knocked the wind out of him and gritted his teeth, his mind screaming at him to get up and run, run, run. He pushed onto his knees, nursing what felt like bruised ribs and a sprained wrist, and then paled as an unmistakable sensation traveled up the arm he’d used to push himself up.
Impact tremors.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom, boom, boom.
Baba Yaga was coming.
Baba Yaga was hunting him.
Jack forced himself up onto his feet again, stumbling backwards and fumbling for the tracker. He got it switched on to see an ominous blob approaching from the right. He’d gotten a good lead on her—maybe a few hundred yards—but he had no way of knowing if he’d eventually run into a dead end. He couldn’t hide down here forever. He needed to get topside to join the others so they could take her down.
Jack blocked out the rising crescendo of Baba Yaga’s hissing and pictured the map again. A mile up to the right had a man-made exit that spilled back up to the forest. The only problem was that it was a long passage. If Baba Yaga followed, there was a good chance she could catch up and roast him like a marshmallow. He could try to lose her in the twists and turns of the cave system, but there was a good chance he’d get lost, and Baba Yaga’s superior senses meant it would only be a matter of time before she found him. It came back to the most basic survival tactics: run or hide.
Jack switched off the tracker and stuck it in his pocket, his voice ragged and shaking, but solid. “You aren’t about to die in this forest, Jackson. Move your ass.”
He barreled forward into the passageway to the right in the wake of Baba Yaga’s ominous, bubbling warning, barely suppressing a groan as a spike of pain lanced through his chest from his bruised ribs. The adrenaline would only hold for so long. He could make it about halfway there before it ran out. Cold sweat plastered the mask to his face and ran down into his eyes. The tunnel stretched onward forever before him. No sunlight in sight. Had he been wrong?
Jack ripped off the hood and cold air slapped his face, making his eyes water. He held his hands out to make sure he wouldn’t bounce off one of the cavern walls and squinted up ahead as he turned the corner into the straightaway. There, faintly, he could see the pale glow of the exit.
Gasping for air, he collapsed against one wall and tried to catch his breath before the final marathon. He had to have put some amount of distance between himself and the dragon by now.
“Who knows?” Jack panted. “Maybe she got annoyed and turned around.”
An earth-shattering roar rocked the very walls of the cavern.
Jack paled.
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
Boom, boom, boom, boomboomboomboom—
Mother of God.
The dragon had broken into a run.
Jack shoved himself away from the wall, lowered his head, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.”
― Kyoko M., Of Blood & Ashes

“In the road of right and wrong, trust me and hold my hand. Let's walk into the cave none has ever strayed into, where nothing matters except us. With the light, you hold in your eyes, let me destroy all the darkness in there.”
― Akshay Vasu

“Dreams hit the fan? Life unexpectedly take a turn for the worst? Here’s what you do:

First thing I think is to realize God didn’t do this to you. It’s just life.

Second, know that it sucks. It does.

Third, it’s a tunnel not a cave.

Fourth, it still sucks.

Fifth, it’s not hopeless. Assign meaning to it. Choose for these horrible things to bring you closer to family and god and not farther apart.

Praying for you”
― Richie Norton

“We are not meant to spend the rest of our lives underground. We need to go home and tell a strange story that no one will believe.”
― Courtney M. Privett, Cavelost

“I also have no problem if you want to find a cave and have someone roll a boulder in front of it.”
― Tim Gunn, Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work

“Lightning doesn't strike through a cave”
― Goitsemang Mvula

“Try to think of it as though we are rewriting history––the first time this experience occurred you and I never kissed in this Dream Machine room. But now when we leave here, and open our eyes again near the wall around the center of Constance, that kiss will be included in our memories of the day we first met. We could spend a lifetime recreating this moment here, meanwhile, not a single second of our lives would slip by back in our reality. Time seems to move differently inside of our memories.”
― Ross Caligiuri, Dreaming in the Shadows

“As her feet beat the concrete ground beneath them, her chest began to ache. It had been a long time since she had run at a full sprint. She was, quite literally, running for her life, and leaving everything she had known before behind. Regardless of her past experiences, here she was, blindly following a girl, who was virtually a stranger, because she had promised to lead Eleanor to safety.”
― Ross Caligiuri, Dreaming in the Shadows

“Eleanor had heard talk of the rebellion that existed inside the city of Constance before. Most of the information she gathered was considered an old fairy tale by the general public. There were a few stories here and there about people angered by their present living conditions, who had demanded that the center of Constance be held responsible for it. However, information was never passed between the five different sectors. Over the years the tales of the rebellion had become children’s bedtime stories, and people did not take them seriously.”
― Ross Caligiuri, Dreaming in the Shadows

“Here we go,” Phoenix said, turning back to Nora. “Try not to let this room scare you.”
― Ross Caligiuri, Dreaming in the Shadows

“The cave was cool and silent- thoroughly carpeted- with the most luxuriant mantle of mosses Alma Whittaker had ever seen.
The cave was not merely mossy; it throbbed with moss. It was not merely green; it was frantically green. It was so bright in its verdure that the color nearly spoke, as though- smashing through the world of sight- it wanted to migrate into the world of sound. The moss was a thick, living pelt, transforming every rock surface into a mythical, sleeping beast. Improbably, the deepest corners of the cave glittered the brightest; they were absolutely studded, Alma realized with a gasp, with the jewellike filigree of 'Schistotega pennata.'
Goblin's gold, dragon's gold, elfin gold- 'Schistotega pennata' was that rarest of cave mosses, that false gem that gleams like a cat's eye from within the permanent twilight of geologic shade, that unearthly sparkling plant that needs but the briefest sliver of light each day to sparkle like glory forever, that brilliant trickster whose shining facets have fooled so many travelers over the centuries into believing that they have stumbled upon hidden treasure. But to Alma, this 'was' treasure, more stunning than actual riches, for it bedecked the entire cave in the uncanny, glistering, emerald light that she had only ever before seen in miniature, in glimpses of moss seen through a microscope... yet now she was standing fully within it.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, The Signature of All Things

“How quiet it is,' Danny said, digging in his knapsack for the canteen full of water he had brought. 'You don’t realize how scary it is, having a whole mountain on top of you, until you’re in the dark as I was in that tunnel, or when you begin hearing the silence.'

'I didn’t know you could hear silence,' said Irene.

'Then just listen.'

They sat still, and Danny added, 'Put out the flashlights for a minute.'

In the dark, they understood what he meant. All the familiar noises of the upper world were gone: the wind, the rustle of branches or leaves, the chirping of birds, the sounds of automobiles and doors slamming, and people laughing. There was nothing but the faint tinkle of droplets of water, each drop like a distant musical chime, and each one pursued by tiny echoes. Then, after such a note had sounded there would be a long and empty quiet in which they could hear their own breathing and the steady beating of their hearts. They found themselves straining their eyes to see something, anything — the slightest sign of light, but they could not even tell the difference between opening their eyes and shutting them.

Irene burst out suddenly, 'Put on the lights!'

Danny let out his breath with a whoosh. They all snapped on their lamps, and as the welcome light flooded the chamber, he said, 'It’s — it’s like being buried alive.'

'Don’t let’s try that experiment again,' Irene said, with a shiver. 'I just hope we get out of here before our flashlights give out.”
― Jay Williams, Danny Dunn and the Fossil Cave

“I can read your thoughts. The amusement was soft and caressing, wrapping her up in strong arms.
I was perfectly sane and sensible until I met you. Now look at me. I’m crawling around inside a mountain. Suddenly she stopped and held herself perfectly still. I’m hearing something. Tell me you are not taking me into a cave full of bats. Say it right now, Jacques, or I’m out of here.
I am not taking you into cave filled with bats.
Shea relaxed visibly. She was not squeamish about very many things, but bats were creatures that were on the earth to remain a safe distance away from her. Miles away. Bats were one of those things she could stare up at in the night sky and think how interesting and wonderful they were, as long as they stayed high above her and nowhere close. Her nose wrinkled. The sounds she was trying to ignore were getting louder. Her heart began to pound in alarm. The walls of the passageway were so narrow, she had no way to move fast. All at once she felt trapped, as if she was suffocating.
I’m going back, Jacques. I’m not a cave person. She did her best to sound firm and matter-of-fact, not at all as if she were seconds from screaming her head off. She turned her head cautiously to keep from scraping her face on the jutting surfaces.
His fingers circled her wrist like a vise. There must be no disturbance. If any creatures exit the cave or warn others of our existence here, we could be found.
A piece of paper couldn’t fit in here, certainly not a person. No one is going to look for us here.
A vampire would know the moment bats flew from the cave.
Bats can’t fly out of here if there aren’t any in here, now, can they? She was sweetly reasonable.”
― Christine Feehan, Dark Desire

“I'll try to leave my club in the cave.”
― L.A. Fiore, Beautifully Forgotten