Quotes about the night
page 13

“Love me like a wrong turn on a bad road
late at night.”

Kim Addonizio (1954) Poet, novelist

“Ask yourself: What did I eat for breakfast today? What did I eat for dinner last night? You see how fast reality fades away?”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

Reality

“When I lay my head on the pillow at night I can say I was a decent person today. That's when I feel beautiful.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

Beauty, Feeling, Personality

“We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Men, Sleep

“Say what you will, there is something fine about our old aristocracy. I'll bet Trotsky couldn't hit a moving secretary with an egg on a dark night.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

“I spent a long time trying to find my center until I looked closely at it one night & found it had wheels and moved easily in the slightest breeze. So now I spend less time sitting and more time sailing.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas

Time

“Piece by piece, I fed my wardrobe to the night wind, and flutteringly, like a loved one’s ashes, the gray scraps were ferried off, to settle here, there, exactly where I would never know, in the dark heart of New York.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Love, Heart

“Think often on God, by day, by night, in your business and even in your diversions. He is always near you and with you; leave him not alone.”

Brother Lawrence (1614–1691) French Christian monk

God, Business, Thinking

“The time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us today…

… some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (1967)
Context: Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.
And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.
Context: Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing, as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we're always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony. But we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for in all our history there has never been such a monumental dissent during a war, by the American people.

Silence, Betrayal, Time

“For we have thought the longer thoughts
And gone the shorter way.
And we have danced to devils' tunes, Shivering home to pray;
To serve one master in the night,
Another in the day.”

Ernest Hemingway book 88 Poems

Source: 88 Poems

Way, Home, Dance

“Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Visions of Johanna
Source: Lyrics: 1962-2001

“I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Winter, Reading

“It was always late at night, when everything and everyone else was quiet, that those voices would rise like ghosts, soft and haunting, filling your mind until sleep finally came.”

Sarah Dessen book Keeping the Moon

Source: Keeping the Moon

Sleep

“For awhile I taped soap operas and watched them at night when I thought I might be forgetting what it was like to be human. After a while I stopped, because from the examples I saw on those shows, forgetting humanity was a good thing.”

Charlaine Harris book Dead Until Dark

Source: Dead Until Dark

Forgetting

“I tell ya, I grew up in a tough neighborhood. The other night a guy pulled a knife on me. I could see it wasn't a real professional job. There was butter on it.”

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian

Source: It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs (2004), p. 16

Guy

“I felt alone on the planet, drifting through the cosmos. With both hands I reached out to the night. There was no answer. Or maybe I just couldn't hear it.”

Jerry Spinelli book Love, Stargirl

Source: Love, Stargirl

“It's not the sort of night for bed, anyhow.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows

“Indecision is the source of chaos."

- Paris Skyle(Allies of the Night)”

Darren Shan Allies of the Night

Source: Allies of the Night

Indecision

“In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Time, Past, Future, Weather

“You lit into me last night. You said what I did was stupid.
- That's what my head said. But my heart… My stupid heart… Her voice broke. It was singing.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Call Me Irresistible

Stupidity, Singing, Heart

“I always think of each night as a song. Or each moment as a song. But now I'm seeing we don't live in a single song. We move from song to song, from lyric to lyric, from chord to chord. There is no ending here. It's an infinite playlist.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Thinking

“For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Love, Health, Food, Light

“Q: Why do I love thee, O Night?
A: Because you know I will never answer.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Love

“If your writing doesn't keep you up at night, it won't keep anyone else up either”

James M. Cain (1892–1977) Novelist, short story writer, journalist

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Deep, Good Night, Dreams

“I know what it's like to be day and night now; always together, forever apart.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

“The clouds were disappearing rapidly, leaving the stars to die. The night dried up.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Source: The Magnetic Fields

Star

“Rich People plan for three generations
Poor people plan for Saturday night”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

People

“The other night I was lying in bed, looking up at the stars, and I wondered, 'Where the hell is my roof?”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Star, Lying, Hell

“Take back the smile and the night, take it all back, I wish I could.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

Smile

“This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best.
Night, sleep, and the stars.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

Books, Art, Soul, Star

“But the warriors true, the brave of heart
Who valiently upheld the right
They are raised on high to the velvet sky
Bringing light to the darkness of night”

Brian Jacques (1939–2011) British fiction writer known for Redwall animal fantasy novels

Light, Heart

“Nights without beginning that had no end. Talking about a past as if it'd really happened. Telling themselves that this time next year, this time next year, things were going to be different.”

Raymond Carver (1938–1988) American short story author and poet

Time, Past

“Was I in here last night and did I spend a $20 bill?

Oh, thank goodness… I thought I'd lost it.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

“Insomnia is an all-night travel agency with posters advertising faraway places.”

Charles Simic (1938) American poet

Source: Dime-Store Alchemy

Travel

“It’s a very female thing, isn’t it, to take one boys’ night and snowball it into a marital infidelity that will destroy our marriage?”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Marriage, Boy

“The night kept coming on in and there was nothing I could do.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Crack-Up

Variant: In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning.
Source: Quoted, The Crack-Up (1936)

Soul

“Some nights I need to be held. Tonight I'm a listener. So nice to lie in rumpled sheets and listen. Cover me with words.”

Don DeLillo book Libra

Source: Libra

Lie

“Since that night I have come to understand that sometimes the best families of all are those we create ourselves, the people we choose to be with.”

Silas House (1971) American writer

Source: Eli the Good

People, Family, Understanding

“Good night, Gabriel.' [Kaitlyn] said
You jerk
[Gabriel] widened his eyes. 'Don't you want to stay? It's a big bed.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: The Strange Power

Jerk

“They wanted to rock, they wanted to roll, they wanted to feel the peculiarly human feeling of having a perfect night in an imperfect world.”

Rebecca Wells book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Source: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

World, Feeling, Perfection

“A friend of mine once defined love as finding someone you can talk to late into the night”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Love

“They spent days, nights, weeks, and years talking, never accepting the fact that, good or bad, an idea only exists when someone tries to put it into practice.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

Idea

“We could go back to your house. I can stay with you always. We can know each others bodies in every way, night after night. I could love you. I could work, you would not be poor. I would help you.”

Charlaine Harris book Dead to the World

Source: Dead to the World

Love, Way, Help, Housing

“I'd spent a night with Ranger a while ago, and I knew what happened when he was encouraged. Ranger knew how to make a woman want him. Ranger was magic.”

Janet Evanovich book Eleven on Top

Source: Eleven on Top

“Black for hunting through the night
For death and sorrow, the color’s white
Gold for a bride in her wedding gown,
And red to call enchantment down.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Death, Color, Wedding

“Whatever torch we kindle, and whatever space it may illuminate, our horizon will always remain encircled by the depth of night.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Source: The World as Will and Representation, Vol 2

“When God wanted a city levelled, or all the first-born slaughtered in one night, he sent an angel.”

Simon R. Green (1955) British writer

Source: Drinking Midnight Wine

God, Angels

“I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Reality, Tear, Summer

“The money men make from their willingness to work the least desirable hours is not a sign of discrimination against women, but a sign of the willingness of mostly married men to lose sleep to support the family as their wife loses sleep to feed the child. A willingness to do the uncomfortable shifts is one reason married men earn more than twice what never-married men earn. Men's contribution, made at night, need not be lost in the dark.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 69.

Women, Men, Money, Family

“Now that this mess is almost behind me – I just have one last request: HBO, when you make the movie about this whole NBC late night fiasco, I’d like to be played by Academy-Award winning actress Tilda Swinton.”

Conan O'Brien (1963) American television show host and comedian

January 22, 2010 Monologue Variety, 23 Jan 2010 http://weblogs.variety.com/on_the_air/ The Tonight Show

“Somewhere far away a bittern cried, a hollow, melancholy sound like a cow shut up in a barn. The cry of that mysterious bird was heard every spring, but no one knew what it was like or where it lived. At the top of the hill by the hospital, in the bushes close to the pond, and in the fields the nightingales were trilling. The cuckoo kept reckoning someone's years and losing count and beginning again. In the pond the frogs called angrily to one another, straining themselves to bursting, and one could even make out the words: "That's what you are! That's what you are!" What a noise there was! It seemed as though all these creatures were singing and shouting so that no one might sleep on that spring night, so that all, even the angry frogs, might appreciate and enjoy every minute: life is given only once.”

Anton Chekhov book In the Ravine

Source: In the Ravine (1900), Ch. 8, pp. 224

Life, Spring, Bird, Sleep

“I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.”

Thomas Hood (1799–1845) British writer

I Remember, I Remember, st. 1 (1827).
1820s

Sun, Housing

“Darrall Imhoff, who as a 6-foot-10 rookie center for the New York Knicks had the misfortune of guarding Chamberlain during his 100-point game in 1962, said, "I spent 12 years in his armpits, and I always carried that 100-point game on my shoulders. "After I got my third foul, I said to one of the officials, Willy Smith, 'Why don't you just give him 100 points and we'll all go home?' Well, we did." Two nights later, at Madison Square Garden, Chamberlain tried to go for the century mark again. But Imhoff 'held' him to 54 points. The fans gave Imhoff a standing ovation. "He was an amazing, strong man," Imhoff said. "I always said the greatest record he ever held wasn't 100 points, but his 55 rebounds against Bill Russell. Those two players changed the whole game of basketball. The game just took an entire step up to the next level."”

Wilt Chamberlain (1936–1999) basketball player

Scoring

Home, Game, Strong, Change

“In night when colours all to black are cast,
Distinction lost, or gone down with the light;
The eye — a watch to inward senses placed,
Not seeing, yet still having power of sight —
Gives vain alarums to the inward sense.”

Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke (1554–1628) English politician

CI.
Caelica (1633)

Sense, Light

“Tombed in the solid night of starless space;
From nearest living orb so far removed,
That light, of all material things most swift,
Myriads on myriads of earth's years must speed,
Ere the mere outskirts of that Stygian gloom,
If ever, it might reach,-at rest eterne,
Lies the cold wreck of an extinguished sun.
Prime glory once of all heaven's radiant host;
Body, for soul of purest light most fit-
'Tween its first darkening, and eclipse complete,
Streamed years which might eternity appear;
While into ether, like the particles,
Invisible, which are the breath of flowers,
The mighty bulk its softer elements
Still ever was exhaling. As when flesh
And sinew of earth's monster Mastodon,
By the slow wasting of the elements,
All are dissolved, and hard, enduring bones
Alone remain,- even so, of this immense,-
When, by the ocean waves of centuries,
Millions succeeding millions, worn away,-
The adamantine skeleton alone,
In darkness, silence, utter solitude,
A ruin for eternity, was left.”

Edwin Atherstone (1788–1872) British writer

Israel in Egypt, Book the First (1861)

Soul, Flowers, Solitude, Light

“In this assembly, every political school has its teachers — every creed has its adherents — and I may safely say, that this banquet is the tribute of United Ireland to the representative of American benevolence. Being such, I am at once reminded of the dinner which took place after the battle of Saratoga, at which Gates and Burgoyne — the rival soldiers — sat together. Strange scene! Ireland, the beaten and the bankrupt, entertains America, the victorious and the prosperous! Stranger still! The flag of the Victor decorates this hail — decorates our harbour — not, indeed, in triumph, but in sympathy — not to commemorate the defeat, but to predict the resurrection, of a fallen people! One thing is certain — we are sincere upon this occasion. There is truth in this compliment. For the first time in her career, Ireland has reason to be grateful to a foreign power. Foreign power, sir! Why should I designate that country a "foreign power," which has proved itself our sister country? England, they sometimes say, is our sister country. We deny the relationship — we discard it. We claim America as our sister, and claiming her as such, we have assembled here this night. Should a stranger, viewing this brilliant scene inquire of me, why it is that, amid the desolation of this day — whilst famine is in the land — whilst the hearse-plumes darken the summer scenery of the island, whilst death sows his harvest, and the earth teems not with the seeds of life, but with the seeds of corruption — should he inquire of me, why it is, that, amid this desolation, we hold high festival, hang out our banners, and thus carouse — I should reply, "Sir, the citizens of Dublin have met to pay a compliment to a plain citizen of America, which they would not pay — 'no, not for all the gold in Venice'”

Thomas Francis Meagher (1823–1867) Irish nationalist & American politician

to the minister of England."
Ireland and America (1846)

Life, Death, People, Truth

“Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

St. 3.
So, We'll Go No More A-Roving (1817)

Love, Light

“It is a lovely night, and they are much to be pitied who have not been taught to feel, in some degree, as you do; who have not, at least, been given a taste for Nature in early life. They lose a great deal.”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park (1814)
Works, Mansfield Park

Love, Life, Feeling, Nature

“But oh! as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

On His Deceased Wife (c. 1658)

“Don't wanna know your name
You're just my lover
Just wanna spend the night
Walking beside you on the water
You look like my lover
But you're words are cold
You say words like him
But thinking has made you grow old.”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Children of the Sun (1969)

Lovers, Thinking, Water

“Earth, left silent by the wind of night,
Seems shrunken 'neath the gray unmeasured height.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

"December".
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70)

“Time to fly away,
Gentlemen, please.
Fly away into the abyss,
Every night at 9 o'clock
We fly into the night once again!”

Jimmy Kennedy (1902–1984) Irish songwriter

Song Flying in the Night
Song lyrics

Time, Flying

“Already darkening night
had quenched all rays of daylight, and made truce,
in mere oblivion of all care and fright,
with tears and with laments.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Già la notte oscura
Avea tutti del giorno i raggj spenti;
E con l'oblío d'ogni nojosa cura
Ponea tregua alle lagrime, ai lamenti.
Canto III, stanza 71 (tr. Wickert)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Tear

“I thanke God for my happy Dreams|dreames, as I doe for my good rest, for there is a satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, and such as can be content with a fit of happinesse; and surely it is not a melancholy conceite to thinke we are all asleepe in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as meare dreames to those of the next, as the Phantasmes of the night, to the conceit of the day. There is an equall delusion in both, and the one doth but seeme to bee the embleme or picture of the other;”

Thomas Browne book Religio Medici

Section 12
Religio Medici (1643), Part II

Life, God, World, Dreams

“I could eat a knob at night.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Podcast Series 1 Episode 3
On Food

“It seems to me now, if I was to find Father at home to-night, I should behave different; but there's no knowing — perhaps nothing 'ud be a lesson to us if it didn't come too late.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Adam Bede (1859)

Home

““Fool. There is no why. The very word is a semantic fallacy. Ask me how and I can lay out for you cause and effect, one thing leading to another, the alcohol acting on a grieving man’s mind, the door inadequately guarded, the people within isolated from the common lot of humanity by the dreadful secret of their ancestry.”
He rattled his glass.
Nathan refilled it.
Faust drank. “But to ask why,” he continued, “implies that things happen for a purpose, and they do not. There is no purpose, no direction, no guidance to events. Nothing means anything. The world is a howling desert of meaningless, and reason is useless before it. There is only blind event.”
He stared off into the bleak landscapes of the future while Nathan refilled his glass and refilled his glass and refilled his glass.
He saw so clearly now, without delusion or hope. It was a crystal night of the soul.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 19, “Ashes” (pp. 327-328)

People, Alcohol, Secret, World

“There was no city, no town, no village, no wood, where the temples of the gods were unbroken. When Sureshavari, varaha and others were broken, the world trembled, but not so the mind of the wicked king. He forgot his kingly duties and took delight day and night in breaking images.”

Sikandar Butshikan

Jonraj: Rajtarangini

God, World

“The City is of Night; perchance of Death,
But certainly of Night; for never there
Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath
After the dewy dawning's cold grey air.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

Part I
The City of Dreadful Night (1870–74)

Death

“What if this present were the world's last night?”

John Donne book Holy Sonnets

No. 13, line 1
Holy Sonnets (1633)

World

“Because I "needed" them for school I had previously extorted a chemistry set, a soldering iron a magnifining glass, a tape recorder, a fountain pen, a Stanley knife, a compass, a torch, a set of oil paints, a speedometer for my bike, some sea monkeys, an Electra set, a halliwell's, a subscription to weapons and warfare and a ticket to the opening night of the Hamilton film festival. I'm sure if I'd claimed I needed one for biology she'd have hooked me up with a prostitute.”

Tony Martin (comedian) (1964) New Zealand comedian and writer

a nest of occasionals (book).

School, Painting, Sea

“If you walk somebody, you just have to get the next hitter out. You can't be frustrated about walks or who is on base. If you've got good stuff that night, you're good enough to get the next hitter out.”

Carlos Zambrano (1981) Venezuelan baseball pitcher

Duncan, Chris, Chi Cubs 3, Houston 0 http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/recap?gid=260814118, Yahoo! Sports, Retrieved on June 16, 2007 2006

“Won't you guide me through the dark night of the soul
That I may better understand your way
Let me be just and worthy to receive
All the blessings of the Lord into my life.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Give Me My Rapture.
Source: Song lyrics, Poetic Champions Compose (1987)

Life, Way, Soul, Understanding

“Here it is night: I stay at the Summit Temple.
Here I can touch the stars with my hand.
I dare not speak aloud in the silence
For fear of disturbing the dwellers of Heaven.”

Li Bai (701–762) Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty poetry period

"The Summit Temple" (夜宿山寺), in The White Pony: An Anthology of Chinese Poetry from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1947), p. 173

Fear, Star, Silence

“Horsed upon hippogriffs, the hags of night
Shall come to visit me; and once an age
Some desperate wight, or wizard, gaunt and grey,
Shall seek this spot by help of hidden lore,
To ask of things forgotten or to come.
But who, beholding me, shall dare defy
The wrath of Jove? Since vain is wisdom's boast,
And impotent the knowledge that o'erleaps
The dusky bourne of time. Twere better far
That gods should quaff their nectar merrily,
And men sing out the day like grasshoppers,
So may they haply lull the watchful thunder.”

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) British poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher

Prometheus
Poems (1851), Prometheus

Wisdom, Men, God, Age

“Moonlight on canvas, midnight and wine,Two shadows starting to softly combine.
The picture they're painting
Is one of the heart;
And to those who have seen it,
It's a true work of art.Oh, the red strokes,
Passions uncaged;
Thundering moments of tenderness rage.
Oh, the red strokes,
Tempered and strong (Fearlessly drawn),
Burning the night like the dawn.”

Garth Brooks (1962) American country music artist

The Red Strokes, written by Jim Garver, Lisa Sanderson, Jenny Yates, and G. Brooks.
Song lyrics, In Pieces (1993)

Strong, Rage, Passion, Wine

“I thought, beloved, to have brought to you
A gift of quietness and ease and peace,
Cooling your brow as with the mystic dew
Dropping from twilight trees.
Homeward I go not yet; the darkness grows;
Not mine the voice to still with peace divine:
From the first fount the stream of quiet flows
Through other hearts than mine.
Yet of my night I give to you the stars,
And of my sorrow here the sweetest gains,
And out of hell, beyond its iron bars,
My scorn of all its pains.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

"For Brian when he is grown up this handful of The Nuts of Knowledge I have gathered on The Secret Streams".
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Pain, Peace, Star, Hell

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful… that's what matters to me.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

On the success of Bill Gates and Microsoft, as quoted in The Wall Street Journal (Summer 1993)
1990s
Variant: Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me… Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful… that's what matters to me.

“Clyde: You're telling me. What about those first three nights, we had to light fires to keep the animals away.”

Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor

The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)

Light, Animals

“Personally, I live by faith, blissfully happy night and day, no matter what I need to suffer or deal with.”

Elias Aslaksen (1888–1976) Norwegian clergyman

Everything works together for the best (Fredrikstad, 7 January, 1976)

Faith, Suffering, Personality, Happiness

“We, the disinherited of this land, we who have been oppressed so long, are tired of going through the long night of captivity. And now we are reaching out for the daybreak of freedom and justice and equality.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s Source: Montgomery Bus Boycott speech, at Holt Street Baptist Church (5 December 1955) http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1955-martin-luther-king-jr-montgomery-bus-boycott

Justice, Freedom

“I couldn't get to sleep at night without saying the Lord's Prayer because, when I was young, I felt I was touched by the hand of Jesus, and hated myself for challenging it.”

Bruce Parry (1969) British documentarian

As quoted in "Bruce Parry: 'My job doesn't allow me a private life" by Cassandra Jardine in The Telegraph (19 September 1007) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2007/09/19/nosplit/fttribe119.xml

Hate, Sleep

“The heavenly bodies move with such regularity, orderliness, and symmetry that it is truly a marvel; and they continue always to act in this manner ceaselessly, following the established system, without increasing or reducing speed and continuing without respite, as the Scripture says: Summer and winter, night and day they never rest.”

Nicole Oresme (1323–1382) French philosopher

Book II, Ch. 2, p. 283.
Le livre du ciel et du monde (1377)

Winter, Summer, Speed

“But, yesterday, the same man-made forms of law, declared it a crime punishable with $1,000 fine and six months' imprisonment, for you, or me, or any of us, to give a cup of cold water, a crust of bread, or a night's shelter to a panting fugitive as he was tracking his way to Canada. And every man or woman in whose veins coursed a drop of human sympathy violated that wicked law, reckless of consequences, and was justified in so doing.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony on the Charge of Illegal Voting] (1874)
Trial on the charge of illegal voting (1874)

Law, Way, Water

“Enemies are at work day and night in the material realm. Chief among these are ignorance, carelessness, and greed. Operating independently or together, they have wrought enormous destruction.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 75

“By capitalist, I mean the investor who puts his money into a concern and draws profits there from without participating in the organisation or management of the business. Were all these to disappear in the night, leaving no trace behind, nothing would be changed.”

Keir Hardie (1856–1915) Scottish socialist and labour leader

Source: From Serfdom to Socialism (1907), p. 11

Money, Business, Change, Drawing

“Air, fire, water and the earth evolve out of the spiritual and material staminibus in periodic cycles of time. Diverse connections of water, air, and light precede the emergence of the seed of the simplest plant, for instance moss. Many plants had to come into being, then die away before an animal emerged. Insects, birds, water animals, and night animals preceded the present animal forms; until finally the crown of earthly organization appeared—the human being, microcosm. He is the son of all the elements and beings, Nature’s most carefully chosen conception and the blossom of creation. He must be the youngest child of Nature; many evolutions and revolutions must have preceded his formation.”

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic

Book 1, as cited in Frank Teichmann (tr. Jon McAlice), "The Emergence of the Idea of Evolution in the Time of Goethe" http://www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org/pdf/BAIdeaEvolTeich.pdf Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784-91)

Nature, Bird, Light, Water

“I can tell you how I feel about you night and day.”

Al B. Sure! (1968) American musician

"Nite and Day", In Effect Mode (1988)

Feeling

“I know no better way, my dearest Edward, of thanking you for your affectionate concern for me during my illness than by telling you myself, as soon as possible, that I continue to get better. I will not boast of my handwriting; neither that nor my face have yet recovered their proper beauty, but in other respects I am gaining strength very fast. I am now out of bed from 9 in the morning to 10 at night: upon the sofa, 'tis true, but I eat my meals with Aunt Cass in a rational way, and can employ myself, and walk from one room to another. Mr. Lyford says he will cure me, and if he fails, I shall draw up a memorial and lay it before the Dean and Chapter, and have no doubt of redress from that pious, learned, and disinterested body.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter to J. Edward Austen (1817-05-27) [Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters: A Family Record]
Letters

Beauty, Way, Learning, Memory

“But may the Earth first swallow me alive,
Or Jove's dire Thunder sink me down to Hell,
Where Shades, pale Shades, of Night eternal dwell,
E're I with Shame, and those dear Ties dispense:
He who my first Love had, hath born it hence,
And in his Grave for ever let it rest.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis

Love, Hell

“To me, through every season dearest;
In every scene, by day, by night,
Thou, present to my mind appearest
A quenchless star, forever bright;
My solitary sole delight:
Where’er I am, by shore—at sea—
I think of thee.”

David Macbeth Moir (1798–1851) Scottish physician and writer

When Thou at Eve art Roaming, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Star, Thinking, Sea, Season

“Could man be drunk for ever
With liquor, love, or fights,
Lief should I rouse at mornings
And lief lie down of nights.
But men at whiles are sober
And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten
Their hands upon their hearts.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

No. 10, st. 2. Last Poems http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8lspm10.txt (1922)

Love, Men, Lie, Thinking

“We believe he [the prosecutor] dropped charges after having googled all night about DHT”

Peter Sunde (1978) Swedish activist and computer expert

Prosecution Drops Some Charges Against The Pirate Bay http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/02/prosecution-dro.html

“Catch me as I fly
Passing by at night
Watch me as I go”

Kate Havnevik (1975) Norwegian singer-songwriter

Song lyrics

Flying

“We are undercover passion on the run,
Chasing love up against the sun,
We are strangers by day, lovers by night,
Knowing it's so wrong but feeling so right.”

Stevie Wonder (1950) American musician

Part-Time Lover
Song lyrics, In Square Circle (1985)

Love, Feeling, Lovers, Passion

“Now you think about this, too: you’re not charming, dashing, or debonair. You’re funny looking, as a matter of fact. You’re too busy to spare much time for me, and even if you did take me out night-clubbing somewhere, you’d be so out of place that I couldn’t enjoy it. But you do one thing: you let me feel that my rules are as worthwhile to me as yours are to you. When you ask me to do something, I know you won’t be hurt if I refuse. And if I do it, you don’t feel that you’ve scored a point in some kind of complex game. You don’t try to use me, cozen me, or change me. I take up as much room in the world, the way you see it, as you do. Do you have any idea of how rare a thing that is?”

Algis Budrys book Rogue Moon

Source: Rogue Moon (1960), Chapter 6 (pp. 127-128)

World, Way, Feeling, Game

“I do not know how I stand this parting from Molly, save that by a paradox we are so absoultely one that in the sense we never part, but talk to one another and watch one another and commune night and day, and grip fast the same ideals. The North Star is our only meeting place, in this manner. We both look at it every night.”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

A 1915 letter written to his aunt in regards to his wife Molly Childers. Cited in " Erskine Childers " by Jim Ring, Faber and Faber, London , (1996), pg. 432.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918)

Star, Communication, Sense, Parting

“Well, the night makes moves”

Ryan Adams (1974) American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter

Nobody Girl
29 (2005)

Quotes about the night page 13

Quotes about the night
page 13