Quotes about time
page 40

“I got Oedipus off the incest charge--technicality, of course--he didn't know it was his mother at the time.”

Jasper Fforde book The Well of Lost Plots

Source: The Well of Lost Plots

“Leo: "So… giants who can throw mountains. Friendly wolves that will eat us if we show weakness. Evil espresso drinks. Gotcha. Maybe this isn't the best time to bring up my psycho babysitter."
Piper: "Is that another joke?”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Mountain, Drink, Evil

“A difference in self loathing? Please. The only difference between a gun and a rope is the time it takes to tie the knot.”

Justine Larbalestier (1967) Australian young-adult fiction author

Source: Zombies Vs. Unicorns

“Time, Ms. McHenry," Townsend said. "It can be a cruel, cruel thing”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

“Anything less than mad, passionate, extraordinary love is a waste of time. There are too many mediocre things in life to deal with and love shouldn't be one of them.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Love, Life, Passion, Madness

“Beauty and ingenuity beat perfection hands down, every time.”

Nalo Hopkinson (1960) Jamaican Canadian writer

Source: Sister Mine

Beauty, Beauty, Perfection

“I've only been gone a week," I reminded him.
Well, a week's a long time. It's seven days. Which is one hundred and sixty-eight hours. Which is ten thousand, eighty minutes. Which is six hundred thousand, for hundred seconds.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 12, p. 330

Motivational, Leadership, People

“I am tired of knowing nothing and being reminded of it all the time.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night

Source: Tender Is the Night

“I’m lost. And it’s my own fault. It’s about time I figured out that I can’t ask people to keep me found.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

People

“We are all the fools of time and terror: Days
Steal on us and steal from us; yet we live,
Loathing our life, and dreading still to die.”

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

Life, Fools

“To be a poet in a destitute time means: to attend, singing, to the trace of the fugitive gods. This is why the poet in the time of the world's night utters the holy.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

God, World, Singing, Night

“every time I've held a rose,
It seems I only felt the thorns”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

“But sooner or later the last good time would come around. It does for all of us.”

Stephen King book Joyland

Source: Joyland

“Justice. I've heard that word. I tried it out. I wrote it down. I wrote it down several times and always it looked like a damn cold lie to me. There is no justice.”

Jean Rhys book Wide Sargasso Sea

Source: Wide Sargasso Sea

Lie, Justice

“Sydney: Ever had that happen? Once you can’t have something, you want it that much more.”
Adrian: “Yes. It happens all the time.”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

“Life is uncharted territory. It reveals its story one moment at a time.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Life

“All of us show many faces to the world. No one shows her true face all of the time. To do that would be dangerous, for what is seen can also be known.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Source: The Wild Orchid: A Retelling of The Ballad of Mulan

World

“All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter (9 April 1945); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker

Life

“Excuse me if I
Have some place in my mind
Where I go time to time.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

It's Good To Be King
Lyrics, Wildflowers (1994)

“The ideas of debtor and creditor as to what constitutes a good time never coincide.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Love Among the Chickens

Source: Love Among the Chickens

Idea

“You should shine with all of your light all the time.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Light

“I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us…”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 2

“If a relationship is on-and-off within the first year, that’s an immediate sign you are wasting your time.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl-A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

“Time, the greatest thief of all.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

“At least as a single woman, I had time to pursue my own interests, read voraciously, and travel when opportunity presented.”

Tasha Alexander (1969) American writer

Source: And Only to Deceive

Travel, Reading

“Books, I found, had the power to make time
stand still, retreat or fly into the future.”

Jim Bishop (1907–1987) American journalist and author

Books, Future, Flying

“That all men are equal is a proposition which at ordinary times no sane individual has ever given his assent.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

"The Idea of Equality"
Source: Proper Studies (1927)

Men

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night (1960)

Life, God, Children, Faith

“People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Hurtful, People

“Once he'd even reprogrammed the electronic billboards in Time Square to read: ALL DA LADIES LUV LEO… accidentally, of course.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Reading

“How many times have I told you not to hit people in the face. You kick them in the body where it doesn't show.”

Janet Evanovich High Five

Source: High Five

People

“No, no. It's always a good time for you to call, Roza.”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

“Time to toss the dice”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

“I think holidays create so much pressure because people feel they should be having a good time. But you shouldn't.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

People, Feeling, Thinking, Holiday

“The thing about leaving something behind for the last time is that you rarely realize you're doing it.”

Wendy Mass (1967) American children's writer

Source: The Candymakers

“The spoken word converts individual knowledge into mutual knowledge, and there is no way back once you've gone over that cliff. Saying nothing was more amendable, and over time I'd come to see that it was usually your best course of action.”

Karen Joy Fowler book We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Source: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Way, Knowledge

“Speak your latent conviction… Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.”

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

Source: Self-Reliance and Other Essays

Sense

“Forgiveness must be immediate, whether or not a person asks for it. Trust must be rebuilt over time. Trust requires a track record.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Forgiveness, Personality

“I’m not the farmer I claimed to be, but I hope I can make you fall in love with me again, this time as a prince, one day at a time. We’ve had a terrible start—it doesn’t mean we can’t have a better ending.”

Mary E. Pearson (1955) young-adult fiction writer

Source: The Heart of Betrayal

Love, Hope

“Don't waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Attitude, Wise, People

“A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Variant: A man who is not a father to his children can never be a real man
Source: The Godfather

For Men, Family

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

(15 January 1990)

Age, Birth, Memory

“Not everyone wants this conventional little life you’re rowing your boat toward. I like my river of fire. And when it’s time for me to go I fully intend to roll off my one-person dinghy into the flames and be consumed. I'm not afraid.”

Zadie Smith book NW

Source: NW

Life, Personality

“Your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip," Jonathan would say, other times, "is nothing more than your thought itself, in a form you can see. Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body, too.”

Richard Bach book Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Source: Jonathan Livingston Seagull

“My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

Education, Reading

“Take it from me: love has all the lasting permanence of a rainbow- beautiful while it's there, and just as likely to have disappeared by the time you blink.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Variant: Love has all the lasting permanence of a rainbow — beautiful while it’s there, and just as likely to have disappeared by the time you blink.
Source: My Sister's Keeper

Love, Beauty

“You can't spend so much time in a place and not carry a bit of it inside you.”

Frank Beddor book The Looking Glass Wars

Source: The Looking Glass Wars

“I'd been hurt, and in response I had acted violently, destroying a little of myself each time I did so.”

John Connolly book The Killing Kind

Source: The Killing Kind

Hurt

“A piece of me is gone," she told me once while we were bra shopping. "I think we're made up of all these different pieces and every time someone goes, you're left with less of yourself.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

Thinking

“You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Variant: You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.
Source: Women

World

“I understood that in this small space of time we had mutually surrendered our loneliness and replaced it with trust.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

Loneliness

“Even if times got bad, he would never again deny himself the possibility that the future might be happy even if the present was painful. He would allow himself dreams.”

Suzanne Collins book Gregor the Overlander

Source: Gregor the Overlander

Pain, Dreams, Future, Happiness

“She likes to read, she reads all the time, and she prefers to be reading several things at once, she says it gives endless perspective and dimension.”

Ali Smith book Autumn

Source: Autumn

Reading

“The only time I see the truth is when I cross my eyes.”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

Source: The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

Truth

“When the music is over, she keeps her head down till she finds her seat again, and I wonder how many times each day she dies a little.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Music

“But pain… seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

Life, Pain, Question, Dead

“Time talks behind our back. To our face it's friendly and logical, never hesitating to give more of itself. But when we're not looking, it steals our lives and says bad things about us to the parts of us it's stolen”

Jonathan Carroll book A Child Across the Sky

Source: A Child Across the Sky

Parting

“Be an independent thinker at all times, and ignore anyone who attempts to define you in a limiting way.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

Attitude, Way

“I saw endless depths of brown, the depths I'd fallen into so many times. No red rings.
Dimitri… was not a Strigoi.
And he was weeping.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

“Money has lost its narrative quality the way painting did once upon a time. Money is talking to itself.”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

Money, Way, Painting

“I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

God, Faith, Question, Parting

“Every single time you crossed over for me and met me on my side. I realize now, I don't think I ever met you in the middle. And I don't think I ever once said that you for that.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Thinking

“I hate time. It never does what you want it to.”

Nick Hornby book Slam

Source: Slam

Hate

“The clock always ticks. There are times you don't hear it, and there are times that you do.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

“There is a fullness of time for things. You have to know when to prod and when to be quiet. When to let things take their course.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Variant: You have to know when to prod and when to be quiet, when to let things take their course.
Source: The Secret Life of Bees

“She makes use of the soft of the bread for a napkin. She falls asleep at times with shoes on, on unmade beds. When a little money comes in, June buys delicacies, strawberries in the winter, caviar and bath salts.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

Money, Shoe, Winter

“To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. Yes. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. Yes.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Silence, Season

“my youth,
one time,
that time
I knew
even through the
nothingness,
it was a
celebration
of something not to
do
but only
know.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Youth

“Living is the challenge. Not dying. Dying is so easy. Sometimes it only takes ten seconds to die. But living? That can take you eighty years and you do something in that time.”

Melina Marchetta book Looking for Alibrandi

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

“There are times when the end justifies the means. But when you build an argument based on a whole series of such times, you may find that you've constructed an entire philosophy of evil." --Luke Skywalker”

Aaron Allston book Betrayal

Source: Betrayal

Evil

“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Bk. X, ch. 16
Source: War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

Patience

“… at the time, King Herbert felt that to remain safe, the kingdom needed an effective intelligence force."

"An intelligent force?" said Will.

"Not intelligent. Intelligence. Although it does help if your intelligence force was also intelligent.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Ruins of Gorlan

Intelligence, Help

“I've had so many bikini waxes, I cry every time I see a Popsicle stick.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Cry

“The heart knoweth its own sorrow and there are times when, like David, it is comforting to think that our tears are put in a bottle and not one of them forgotten by the one who leads us in paths of sorrow.”

Hannah Hurnard book Hinds' Feet on High Places

Source: Hinds' Feet on High Places

Thinking, Tear, Heart

“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Women

“When you told me the first time that Valentine was your father, I didn't believe it. Not just because I didn't want it to be true, but because you weren't anything like him. I've never thought you're anything like him. But you are. You are.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“Love can touch us one time
And last for a life time
And never let go till
We're gone.”

Céline Dion (1968) Canadian singer

Love, Life

“You never give away your heart; you lend it from time to time. If it were not so how could we take it back without asking?”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

Heart

“Time works so hard for us, if only we can let it.”

Tana French book The Likeness

Source: The Likeness

“If there ever comes a time when the women of the world come together purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a force such as the world has never known.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Women, World

“Wroth, darling,” she purred, smiling so sweetly. “I can’t wait for the next time I get to put my mouth on you.” In an instant the smile faded and she snapped her teeth and yanked her head back as if she was chewing something free.”

Kresley Cole book The Warlord Wants Forever

Source: The Warlord Wants Forever

Smile, Waiting

“I've finished running from you, Redd. It's time for you to run."
--Alyss”

Frank Beddor book The Looking Glass Wars

Source: The Looking Glass Wars

“He needed his solitude at times, but he wasn't a hermit. He did a lot of socializing. Sometimes I think it was like he was storing up company for the times when he knew nobody would be around.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

Thinking, Solitude

“If time were a bolt of cloth,” said Om, “I would cut out all the bad parts. Snip out the scary nights and stitch together the good parts, to make time bearable. Then I could wear it like a coat, always live happily.”

Rohinton Mistry A Fine Balance

Source: A Fine Balance

Parting, Clothes, Night

“A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

Love, God, Suffering, Passion

“Somehow, even in the worst of times, the tiniest fragments of good survive. It was the grip in which one held those fragments that counted.”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

“I try to maintain a positive attitude at all times, because clients notice little things like that, and if you're frowning and crying all the time and saying "why? why?", they get worried.”

John Swartzwelder book The Time Machine Did It

Source: The Time Machine Did It

Cry

“I was worn out, broken: He had taken almost everything. But he'd been all I'd had, all this time. And when the police led him away, I pulled out of the hands of all these loved one, sobbing, screaming, everything hurting, to try and make him stay.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

Love, Hurt

“The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human.”

Michael Ondaatje book In the Skin of a Lion

Source: In the Skin of a Lion

“Time and death sleep side by side.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Variant: "Time and death sleep side by side," said the Dog. "Both are in Astrael's Domain."
Source: Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy), Abhorsen (2003), p. 64.

Death, Sleep

“Time-travelers lie a lot.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

11/22/63

Lie, Travel