Cave Quotes

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
― Joseph Campbell

“Peeta,” I say lightly. “You said at the interview you’d had a crush on me forever. When did forever start?”
“Oh, let’s see. I guess the first day of school. We were five. You had on a red plaid dress and your hair... it was in two braids instead of one. My father pointed you out when we were waiting to line up,” Peeta says.
“Your father? Why?” I ask.
“He said, ‘See that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner,’” Peeta says.
“What? You’re making that up!” I exclaim.
“No, true story,” Peeta says. “And I said, ‘A coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner if she could’ve had you?’ And he said, ‘Because when he sings... even the birds stop to listen.’”
“That’s true. They do. I mean, they did,” I say. I’m stunned and surprisingly moved, thinking of the baker telling this to Peeta. It strikes me that my own reluctance to sing, my own dismissal of music might not really be that I think it’s a waste of time. It might be because it reminds me too much of my father.
“So that day, in music assembly, the teacher asked who knew the valley song. Your hand shot right up in the air. She stood you up on a stool and had you sing it for us. And I swear, every bird outside the windows fell silent,” Peeta says.
“Oh, please,” I say, laughing.
“No, it happened. And right when your song ended, I knew—just like your mother—I was a goner,” Peeta says. “Then for the next eleven years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you.”
“Without success,” I add.
“Without success. So, in a way, my name being drawn in the reaping was a real piece of luck,” says Peeta. For a moment, I’m almost foolishly happy and then confusion sweeps over me. Because we’re supposed to be making up this stuff, playing at being in love not actually being in love. But Peeta’s story has a ring of truth to it. That part about my father and the birds. And I did sing the first day of school, although I don’t remember the song. And that red plaid dress... there was one, a hand-me-down to Prim that got washed to rags after my father’s death.
It would explain another thing, too. Why Peeta took a beating to give me the bread on that awful hollow day. So, if those details are true... could it all be true?
“You have a... remarkable memory,” I say haltingly. “I remember everything about you,” says Peeta, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re the one who wasn’t paying attention.”
“I am now,” I say.
“Well, I don’t have much competition here,” he says. I want to draw away, to close those shutters again, but I know I can’t. It’s as if I can hear Haymitch whispering in my ear, “Say it! Say it!”
I swallow hard and get the words out. “You don’t have much competition anywhere.” And this time, it’s me who leans in.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

“You know,” he said, “I wish you could see this cave.”

“What’s it like?”

He paused. “It’s...beautiful, really.”

“Tell me.”

And so Po described to Katsa what hid in the blackness of the cave; and outside, the world awaited them.”
― Kristin Cashore, Graceling

“Do they not deserve our attention, those armies of small-minded and low-graded people, drifting on the waves of their unawareness or misfortune, suffocating in their caves of bewilderment and fading into oblivion? Imminent counteractions might unchain an avalanche of social fallouts if they feel ignored or disregarded. Sheeple’s rage is unpredictable and rampant. We must never fail to remember the lessons of history. (“Bread and Satellite”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Of course the Man was wild too. He was dreadfully wild. He didn't even begin to be tame till he met the Woman, and she told him that she did not like living in his wild ways. She picked out a nice dry Cave, instead of a heap of wet leaves, to lie down in; and she strewed clean sand on the floor; and she lit a nice fire of wood at the back of the Cave; and she hung a dried wild-horse skin, tail down, across the opening of the Cave; and she said, 'Wipe your feet, dear, when you come in, and now we'll keep house.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories

“How in hell did those bombers get up there every single second of our lives! Why doesn't someone want to talk about it! We've started and won two atomic wars since 2022! Is it because we're having so much fun at home we've forgotten the world? Is it because we're so rich and the rest of the world's so poor and we just don't care if they are? I've heard rumors; the world is starving, but we're well fed. Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we're hated so much? I've heard the rumors about hate too, once in a long while, over the years. Do you know why? I don't, that's sure! Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes!”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“I open my eyes.
I want to know:
what is in the abyss of a kiss?
Are stars born in these black caves
that house bated breaths and unspoken words?
Do our souls crawl on these tender cheeks
to greet one another by ivory gates?
What happens when we kiss?
Where do you go?
Don’t tell me.
For I have lost my desire to know.
Kiss me
so that I forget myself.
I close my eyes
and fall in the abyss.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“It was as though committing murders had purged him of lesser rudeness. Or perhaps, Starling thought, it excited him to see her marked in this particular way. She couldn't tell. The sparks in his eyes flew into his darkness like fireflies down a cave.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Vagina man,’ said Bunny, and his two colleagues went quiet and nodded in silent agreement.”
― Nick Cave, The Death of Bunny Munro

“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

“The track led into a sort of tunnel made of forest. They left daylight behind, a thousand leaves hemming them into dusky shade. As she traipsed behind Jack's torn blue jacket, he squinted into the foliage, hearkening to every cracking twig or bird-chirrup. After what seemed an age, they came out into blessed sunshine again. They were in a clearing, their ears filled with a thundering wind, the air itself trembling. A few paces further they came upon the source: above them, a waterfall tumbled from a clifftop as high as a church steeple. The water fell in milky blue strands, shooting spray in the air that danced in rainbows of gold, pink and blue. At their feet was a deep and inviting lagoon. It fair took her breath away.
Jack crouched to look at the pool's edge, where a mud bank was scrabbled with marks.
"We should go back," he said. "Something drinks here."
She didn't care. She was spellbound. "Look, a cave!" Across the lagoon stood a dark entrance hung with pretty mosses, like a fairy grotto.
"Just one peep," she whispered, for there was something powerful and secret about the place. "Then we can go back."
But Jack was still peering at the tracks around the water's edge.
"Whatever drinks here, it's not here now. I dare you, Jack. A quick look around the cave and then we'll be on our way." She had a notion, from some story or other, that caves were places where treasure was hidden; she reckoned pirates might have left jewels and plunder behind long ago.
"It's the end of the rainbow," she laughed. "Let's find our crock of gold.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“And on the far shore a creature that raised its dripping mouth from the rimstone pool and stared into the light with eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders. It swung its head low over the water as if to take the scent of what it could not see. Crouching there pale and naked and translucent, its alabaster bones cast up in shadow on the rocks behind it. Its bowels, its beating heart. The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell. It swung its head from side to side and then gave out a low moan and turned and lurched away and loped soundlessly into the dark.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for. The damned thing in the cave, that was so dreaded, has become the center.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“in case we ever lose each other
always remember this
our sign
and i will find you again
as i go to find my brother'
the painter promises”
― Marie Burdett, The Little Boy and the Painter

“Deep down here by the dark water lived old
Gollum, a small slimy creature. I don’t know
where he came from, nor who or what he was. He was Gollum — as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face. He had a little boat, and he rowed about quite quietly on the lake; for lake it was, wide and deep and deadly cold. He paddled it with large feet dangling over the side, but never a ripple did he make. Not he. He was looking out of his pale lamp-like eyes for blind fish, which he grabbed with his long fingers as quick as thinking. He liked meat too. Goblin he thought good, when he could get it; but he took care they never found him out. He just throttled them from behind, if they ever came down alone anywhere near the edge of the water, while he was prowling about. They very seldom did, for they had a feeling that something unpleasant was lurking down there, down at the very roots of the mountain. They had come on the lake,
when they were tunnelling down long ago, and they found they could go no further; so there their road ended in that direction, and there was no reason to go that way — unless the Great Goblin sent them. Sometimes he took a fancy for fish from the lake, and sometimes neither goblin nor fish came back.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“It’s a tunnel, not a cave.”
― Richie Norton

“A cave has two great things to teach you: Light is sacred; silence is to integrate with eternity!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“The sacredness of the world is that it pursued the light; the sanctity of the cave is that it never left the darkness”
― Brian S. Woods

“No need to search for the sun, just leave your cave, he will find you!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“finally he speaks
'if you come into my cave, child
you will not come out again unchanged'
his hands gesture beyond him
trying vainly to describe
something greater than him
'if you come into this deep cave,
down halls few feet have ever trod,
you will not be you again
you will be another you,
a newer you
a blinded yet unblinded being,
footsteps following the footsteps of those
who have painted here before
will you come?”
― Marie Burdett, The Little Boy and the Painter

“To the modern detective, truth is rarely its own reward; usually it is its own punishment. And if you cannot track mystery to the back of its ugly cave, then be content to stand at the edge of the dark and call it by name.”
― Jedediah Berry, The Manual of Detection

“We're just a couple of ordinary blokes with an unusual hobby.”
― Liam Cochrane, Miracle in the Cave: The 12 Lost Boys, Their Coach, and the Heroes Who Rescued Them

“The whirlpool splashed into view, swirls of blue and green simmering against an outcropping of grayish-brown rock in the glow of half-light. I stared out at it in fascination and wonder, feeling as if I had entered the setting of a fairy tale and this was a magical pool, perhaps the looking glass of a unicorn or the home of an enchanted prince, ancient as time itself.”
― Gina Marinello-Sweeney, Peter

“They say great science is built on the shoulders of giants. —Not here. At Aperture, we do all our science from scratch, no hand-holding.”
― JK Simmons

“," I knew you were there with me. You know I felt that I had been travelling in a long cave which was full of darkness. Suddenly you had come from nowhere and held my hands and brought me out from the cave. Were you with me in this journey?”
― Neelam Saxena Chandra, Casket of stories

“The Abundant Chamber by Stewart Stafford

Divest yourself of sword and coin,
And burn all your illusions and airs,
Let the cave mouth swallow you,
Go willingly into its dark recesses.

A comforting seashell to the ear,
There is no sound out of place,
Stillness a vast garment grounded,
Encroaching ambiance calms.

Now look within and take stock,
Have you reached your apotheosis?
Be cleansed by pure water pools,
Then become reborn to the light.

© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“So here are the wages for your service,' I say with a pointed look around the cave. 'I hope betrayal was its own reward.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“What is the meaning of drawing the sword from the stone? The meanings are several. It is the same message and symbol as Mithra coming from the cave or Jesus rising from the cave after death. The stone - cave represents the body - the apparent world - the nafs – the commanding self. Pulling the Sword from the Stone, in short means, pulling the light from "matter,” extracting essence from base. See it in an alchemical sense. In other words, it is the story of illumination. Thus, it is the moment of “Kingship.”
― Laurence Galian, The Sun at Midnight: The Revealed Mysteries of the Ahlul Bayt Sufis

“The cold was what hit me first.

Brisk, crisp cold, laced with loam and rotting things.

In the twilight, the world beyond the narrow cave mouth was a latticework of red and gold and brown and green, the trees thick and old, the mossy ground strewn with rocks and boulders that cast long shadows.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Wings and Ruin

“Grief is a tunnel, not a cave.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret