“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.”

“Gather the flowers, but spare the buds.”

Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) English metaphysical poet and politician

“In the middle of the night, things well up from the past that are not always cause for rejoicing--the unsolved, the painful encounters, the mistakes, the reasons for shame or woe. But all, good or bad, give me food for thought, food to grow on.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

“Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.”

Ben Hecht (1894–1964) American screenwriter

“Alice wonders if other women in the middle of the night have begun to resent their Formica.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

“And now I cry in the middle of the night for the same damn thing.”

Kelly Clarkson (1982) American singer-songwriter, actress

“Sometimes things seem so unbearable in the middle of the night, don't they? In the middle of the night, we're all such children.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

“Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away.
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

“I may be the type who manages to grab all the pointless things in life but lets the really important things slip away.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

“Life was so short; so many beautiful things slipped away.”

Kate DiCamillo The Magician's Elephant