Quotes about time
page 42

“Really now: If you can't get me my newspaper on time, how can you expect me to refrain from killing people?”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

“How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success?”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Effort, Success, Patience

“All of us heal in time. The strongest are born again. We only keep the scars we choose to keep.”

Alethea Kontis (1976) American writer

Source: Enchanted

“There comes a time in a man's life when to get where he has to – if there are no doors or windows – he walks through a wall.”

Bernard Malamud (1914–1986) American author

"The Man in the Drawer", in Rembrandt's Hat (1973); cited from Selected Stories (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985) p. 225

Life

“The past always seems better when you look back on it than it did at the time. And the present never looks as good as it will in the future.”

Peter Benchley book Jaws

Source: Jaws

Past, Future

“Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.”

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

“A postcard. Neat handwriting fills the rectangle.

Half my days I cannot bear to touch you.
The rest of my time I feel like it doesn’t matter if I will ever see you again. It isn’t the morality, it’s how much you can bear.

No date. No name attached.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Feeling

“I left him in his wheelchair, staring sadly into the fireplace. I wondered how many times he’d sat here, waiting for heroes that never came back.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Waiting

“Listen, every object's in flux. The Earth, time, concepts, love, life, faith, justice, evil-they're all fluid and in transition. They don't stay in one form or in one place forever. The whole universe is like some big FedEx box.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 30, Colonel Sanders

Love, Life, Faith, Justice

“We had a happy marriage because we were together all the time. We were friends as well as husband and wife. We just had a good time.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

Wedding, Marriage, Happiness

“She breathed deeply of the scent of decaying fiction, disintegrating history, and forgotten verse, and she observed for the first time that a room full of books smelled like dessert: a sweet snack made of figs, vanilla, glue, and cleverness.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: NOS4A2

Books, History

“O words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away”

John Clare (1793–1864) English poet

Source: Poems Chiefly from Manuscript

“Darling, a true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes and does her whorish best. At other times you can be as modest and dignified as your persona requires.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

Source: The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

Clothes

“There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was an ending.”

Brandon Sanderson The Wheel of Time

Source: A Memory of Light

“What's so hard about that first sentence is that you're stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you've laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone.”

Joan Didion (1934) American writer

“Tania, last time in Morozovo, I let you go, but not this time. This time we live together or we die together.”

Paullina Simons book Tatiana and Alexander

Source: Tatiana and Alexander

“Reminds me of the red dress you wore the first time I had you. That was it for me, you know. You devastated me. There was no coming back from that.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Entwined with You

“Like anyone nostalgic for a time he didn't live through, I chose to weed out the little inconveniences: polio, say, or the thought of eating stewed squirrel. The world was simply grander back then, somehow more civilized, and nicer to look at.”

David Sedaris When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

World

“The human heart is like a night bird. Silently waiting for something, and when the time comes, it flies straight toward it.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Bird, Waiting, Heart, Night

“.. and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didnt know who I was”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Life

“What business does memory have with time?”

Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruins

Source: Beautiful Ruins

Business, Memory

“That is the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want. People want to be left alone to look after their cattle.”

Alexander McCall Smith The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Source: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

People, Business, Problem, Thinking

“Yes, I can talk and think at the same time. Most people can, though I suppose you wouldn't know that from personal experience.
Elena (Bitten)”

Kelley Armstrong (1968) Canadian writer

People, Thinking, Personality

“I had forgotten to fear him, from too much time spent too close.”

Naomi Novik book Uprooted

Source: Uprooted

Fear

“The curse of an interesting life: there are either very good times or very bad times.”

Alethea Kontis (1976) American writer

Source: Enchanted

Life

“I was thinking, that when my time comes, I should be sorry if the only plea I had to offer was that of justice. Because it might mean that only justice would be meted out to me.”

Agatha Christie Murder at the Vicarage

Source: Murder at the Vicarage

Justice, Thinking

“See, when you mess something up, you learn for the next time. It's when people compliment you that you're in trouble. That means they expect you to keep it up.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

People, Learning

“I believe that in time we will have reached the point where we will deserve to be free of government.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Brodie's Report

Source: Brodie's Report

“If God hadn't rested on Sunday, He would have had time to finish the world.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

God, World

“I learned: the first lesson of my life: nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time.”

Salman Rushdie book Midnight's Children

Source: Midnight's Children

Life, World, Learning

“This is making me crazy. I hate relying on other people to save me, I hate being clingy, I hate it, and every time you show up, I lean on you. - Matilda Scarlet Veronica Betty Vilma Goodnight”

Jennifer Crusie (1949) American writer

Source: Faking It

Hate, People

“To live your best life now, you must learn to trust God’s timing, you may not think He’s working, but you can be sure that right now, behind the scenes, God is arranging all the pieces to come together to work out His plan for your life.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Life, God, Thinking, Learning

“There we will, I pray, remain and learn and grow until the time when we will rise together to the ultimate heights, changing in appearance but never in devotion, sharing the transcendent glory of our love through all eternity.”

Richard Matheson book What Dreams May Come

Source: What Dreams May Come

Love, Learning, Appearance, Change

“Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.”

Arnold Lobel (1933–1987) American children's illustrator and writer

Love, Books, Reading

“If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Personality

“My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That's heaven. That's gold and anything else is just a waste of time.”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

Perfection

“She stood in front of the mirror a long time, and finally decided she either looked like a sap or else she looked very beautiful. One or the other.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Beauty

“Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden (1952)

“Did you really JUST fall, Jeffrey?
Why does everybody in my family talk in these dramatic CAPITAL LETTERS all the time? Why am I the only calm one?”

Jordan Sonnenblick (1969) American writer

Source: Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie

Family

“Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Life, World

“They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

Andy Warhol book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 7: Time
Source: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Business, Change

“Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Christmas, Peace, Christmas, Season

“I love you. It was the tie that bound, even across the divides of death and time.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: The King

Love, Death

“In our time together, you claimed a special place in my heart, one I'll carry with me forever and that no one can ever replace.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Heart

“We are living in modern times throughout the world and yet are dominated by medieval minds.”

Eqbal Ahmad (1933–1999) writer, journalist, anti-war activist

Source: Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire

World

“Believe it or not, that was the first time I recognized that in some ways she was just like the rest of us.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Way

“Any time some well-meaning person forces you to demonstrate you have no talent and rubs your nose in the fact you're a failure at the only dream you ever had, take another drink.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Diary

Source: Diary

Dreams, Failure, Drink, Personality

“What you don't necessarily realize when you start selling your time by the hour is that what you're really selling is your.”

Barbara Ehrenreich book Nickel and Dimed

Source: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

“Work freely and rollickingly as though you were talking to a friend who loves you. Mentally (at least three or four times a day) thumb your nose at all know-it-alls, jeerers, critics, doubters.”

Brenda Ueland (1891–1985) Journalist and writer

Source: If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit

Love

“I’d had a key to the marina’s locks at one time, but I’d lost track of it when I got shot, drowned, died, got revived into a coma, haunted my friends for a while, and then woke up in Mab’s bed.

(My life. Hell’s bells.)”

Jim Butcher book Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

Life, Hell

“What’s your name?”
“What do you want it to be?”
“Are you a vampire?”
“Not the last time I checked.”

Kresley Cole book The Warlord Wants Forever

Source: The Warlord Wants Forever

“Every great film should seem new every time you see it."
Roger Ebert”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

“Happens to me all the time… People are always underestimating my dumbness.”

Janet Evanovich (1943) Novelist

Source: Motor Mouth

People

“Maybe I should add some graffiti to spice it up. For a good time call the Consort. Beast Lord eats your food and turns into a lion in his sleep. Mahon has hemorrhoids. Boudas do it better. Warning, paranoid attack jaguar on the prowl…”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Food, Sleep

“By the time I finish with the two of you, you will be begging me to let you die. (Desiderius)
Desi dearest, I have never begged a day in my life, and the sun will surely splinter before I ever plead for anything from the likes of you. (Kyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Life, Sun

“You could tell by the way he talked, though, that he had gone to school a long time. That was probably what was wrong with him.”

John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces

Source: A Confederacy of Dunces

School, Way

“When I am abroad I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the Government of my country. I make up for lost time when I am at home.”

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

In the House of Commons (18 April 1947), cited in The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations (1996), Jay, Oxford University Press, p. 93.
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Home, Country

“Animals hear about death for the first time when they die.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Death, Animals

“She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you would never know.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Hope, Game, Hurt

“Books have to be read (worse luck it takes so long a time). It is the only way of discovering what they contain. A few savage tribes eat them, but reading is the only method of assimilation revealed to the West.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Books, Way, Reading

“It was time to say good-bye. Jack sent.”

Melissa de la Cruz (1971) American writer

Source: Gates of Paradise

“You were in my arms for the first time, and you said my name, 'Tristan.'
I answered you: 'Isolde.'
Isolde. The world became a word.”

Jeanette Winterson book Lighthousekeeping

Source: Lighthousekeeping

World

“In this moment, there is plenty of time. In this moment, you are precisely as you should be. In this moment, there is infinite possibility. (17)”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Source: Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit

“You forgot another lesson: Never turn your back until you know your enemy
is dead. Looks like we’ll have to go over the lesson again the next time
I see you—which will be soon.
Love, D.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Love, Dead

“Passing time isn't a steady thing. People try to measure it, but some days seem to have years packed into them, and others pass in the blink of an eye. Some days matter, and others don't.”

Blue Balliett book The Calder Game

Source: The Calder Game

People

“It struck me then how much the past - not just the past but history and family - was like the ocean tide. It was always the same ocean, but the waves made it fresh and new each time.”

Aimee Friedman (1979) American writer

Source: Sea Change

Family, History, Past

“I want to be a scientist who studies the ocean when I grow up. I would go out to sea, and scuba dive, and find new things, and National Geographic will hire me.”
Sure, Nudge. Probably around the time I become president.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Study, Sea

“As time goes by, as time goes by, the whip-crack of the years, the precipice of illusions, the ravine that swallows up all human endeavour except the struggle to survive.”

Roberto Bolaño book By Night in Chile

Source: By Night in Chile

“TV and the Internet are good because they keep stupid people from spending too much time out in public.”

Douglas Coupland book JPod

Source: JPod (2006)

People, Stupidity

“I've needed someone like you for a long time. Now that I have you, no one is going to take you from me.

Logan to Madeline”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Because You're Mine

“Time and Patience.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Patience

“For the first time I realize how perilous peace can be. I appreciate the tightrope that my grandfather has spent his whole life trying to walk. And now, more than ever, I grow terrified that I'm going to make us all fall down.”

Ally Carter book All Fall Down

Source: All Fall Down

Life, Peace

“In times of war, you often hear leaders—Christian, Jewish, and Muslim—saying, ‘God is on our side.’ But that isn’t true. In war, God is on the side of refugees, widows, and orphans.”

Greg Mortenson (1957) American mountaineer and humanitarian

Source: Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time

God, War

“I knew that it wouldn’t last. It was just a moment, a perfect moment, as time stood still and fleetingly everything fell back into its proper place.”

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

Source: That Summer

Perfection

“For all the compasses in the world, there's only one direction, and time is its only measure.”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

World

“I'd been willing to kill for the people I loved for a very long time; now I had to start living for them.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Love, People

“It is the same way with dating. The time you are most prepared for dating is when you don't need anyone to complete you, fulfill you, or instill in you a sense of worth or purpose.”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

Source: Waiting and Dating

Way, Sense

“But Rose? While I'm fine with you two dating and being happy, please try not to brake his heartmuch when the time comes.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Variant: While I'm fine with you two dating and being happy, please try not to break his heart too much when the time comes.
Source: Spirit Bound

Happiness

“I’M PRETTY GOOD at multitasking, so I figured I could flee in terror and argue at the same time.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

“Some times I think this whole world
Is one big prison yeard
Some of us are prisoners
The rest of us are guards”

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

World, Thinking

“I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.

[, New York Times, April 19, 1992]”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

“Bad things happen to good people all the time. It sucks. It's not fair but then much of life isn't fair. It's how you live that matters. It's how you deal with the bumps in the road.”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: Echoes at Dawn

Life, People

“They have terrified my poor wife and threatened my very person!"
Halt eyed the man impassivley until the outburst was finished.
Worse than that," he said quietly, "they've wasted my time.”

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

Source: The Icebound Land

Personality

“A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Variant: I wished I was on the same bus as her. A pain stabbed my heart as it did everytime I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world of ours.
Source: On the Road

Love, Pain, World, Girl

“Did Belikov bend the rules of time and space to get here so fast? He can do that, right?”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

“My manners, abominable at times, can be sweet. As I grew older I became a drunk. Why? Because I like ecstasy of the mind. I'm a wretch. But I love, love.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Satori in Paris (1966)
Source: Satori in Paris & Pic

Love