Quotes about time
page 47

“Time is a gift, given to you, given to give you the time you need, the time you need to have the time of your life.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

“This is what historians usually do, quibble about cause and effect when the point is, there are times when the world is in flux and the right voice in the right place can move the world. Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin, for instance. Bismark. Lenin.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Pain, World

“With the rise of chiefdoms around 7,500 years ago, people had to learn, for the first time in history, how to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them.”

Jared Diamond book Guns, Germs, and Steel

Source: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

People, History, Learning

“Everywhere is walking distance if you've got the time.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Steven Wright Special (1985)

“I wonder if everyone who faces death hurts like this. It's as though for the first time I realize how much just being alive makes my body ache. But I don't want that ache to stop.”

Shannon Hale book Book of a Thousand Days

Source: Book of a Thousand Days

Death, Hurt

“I’m having a hard time writing about Sunday. Getting the long hollow feeling of Sundays. No mail and faraway lawn mowers, the hopelessness.”

Lucia Berlin (1936–2004) American writer

Source: A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

Feeling

“The world of the dead wonʹt give you
up a second time.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

World, Dead

“God's a busy guy. He don't have time to micromanage. What are the chances he heard that? It's early in the morning. He's probably having breakfast with Mrs. God.”

Janet Evanovich (1943) Novelist

Source: Motor Mouth

God, Guy, Business, Chance

“All I'm out for is a good time - all the rest is propaganda.”

Alan Sillitoe book Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

Source: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

“Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) English-American childrens' playwright and author

“Ordinary folk prefer familiar tastes - they'd sooner eat the same things all the time - but a gourmet would sample a fried park bench just to know how it tastes.”

Walter Moers (1957) German comic creator and author

“Why do you tell me you love me only when you're drunk or dreaming? she asked. I have awful timing, said Simon”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Love, Dreams

“The greatest question of our time is not communism vs. individualism, not Europe vs. America, not even the East vs. the West; it is whether men can bear to live without God.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Men, God, Communication, Question

“When she played her music even the night demons stopped their work & it took them some time to remember what it was they were doing & the best of them had no stomach for it for a long time after that.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

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

Music, Night

“In time, in time they tell me, I'll not feel so bad. I don't want time to heal me. There's a reason I'm like this.
I want time to set me ugly and knotted with loss of you, marking me. I won't smooth you away.
I can't say goodbye.”

China Miéville book The Scar

Source: The Scar

Feeling, Loss

“An empty frame, in which the picture is always changing, makes a statement about how time is always passing. It doesn't really stop, even in a single image. I t just feels that way.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Way, Feeling, Change

“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Law, Freedom, Fight

“I want an infinitely blank book and the rest of time…
… why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time, my greatest regret is how much I believed in the future.”

Jonathan Safran Foer (1977) Novelist

Books, Learning, Future

“I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Reading

“The wolves knew when it was time to stop looking for what they'd lost, to focus instead on what was yet to come.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

“A broken clock is right two times a day.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Shadow

Source: Ender's Shadow

“They say the secret of success is being at the right place at the right time, but since you never know when the right time is going to be, I figure the trick is to find the right place and just hang around.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Secret, Success

“In times of crisis, it is of the utmost importance that one does not lose her head.
Marie Antoinette”

Robert Lynn Asprin (1946–2008) American science fiction and fantasy author

“The time has come, everybody lie down so you won't get hurt when the sun bursts.”

Neal Cassady (1926–1968) American cultural figure of 1950s and 1960s

Source: First Third & Other Writings - Revised & Expanded Edition Together With A New Prologue

Lie, Sun, Hurt

“None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.”

Anne Rice book The Vampire Lestat

Source: The Vampire Lestat

Change

“A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it.”

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American folklorist, novelist, short story writer

Source: Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica

“those times i burned my guitar it was like a sacrifice. we all burn things we love. i love my guitar”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

Love

“It is only when the correct practice is followed for a long time, without interruptions and with a quality of positive attitude and eagerness, that it can succeed.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

Source: Yoga-Sutras

“Time is, time was, but time shall be no more.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“She had fallen in love so many times that she began to suspect she was not falling in love at all, but doing something much more ordinary.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Variant: She had been in love so many times that she began to suspect she was not falling in love, but rather doing something much more ordinary
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Love

“I got along without you before I met you and I'll get along without you a long time after you're gone.”

Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.

“At the time I thought what I had with you and your mother was better than nothing. But if you can't tell the truth to the people you care about the most, eventually you stop being able to tell the truth to yourself.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

People, Truth

“The only thing a cat worries about is what's happening right now. As we tell the kittens, you can only wash one paw at a time.”

Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) American children's writer

Source: Time Cat

Cats

“I have to warn you. I promised my mother, a long time ago. She said I had to give folks a chance to walk away.”

Lee Child book Nothing to Lose

Source: Nothing to Lose

Chance

“We created time, and now we have become the slave of time.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Source: Love

“I'm sorry, Gemma. But we can't live in the light all of the time. You have to take whatever light you can hold into the dark with you.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Light

“I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)
Context: I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving.

Life, Parting

“He carefully maintained the blasé air of one who had been here before and had been incredibly well dressed that time too”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Source: The Bane Chronicles

“At this moment, many people have stopped living. They do not become angry, nor cry out; they merely wait for time to pass. They did not accept the challenges of life, so life no longer challenges them”

Paulo Coelho book The Fifth Mountain

Source: The Fifth Mountain

Life, People, Waiting, Cry

“Standing there, I loved myself and I hated myself. That's what the black Mary did to me, made me feel my glory and my shame at the same time.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Love, Hate, Feeling

“A sip of wine, a cigarette,
And then it’s time to go.
I tidied up the kitchenette;
I tuned the old banjo.
I’m wanted at the traffic-jam.
They’re saving me a seat.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Wine

“At times like this, I'm thankful I don't feel love.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

Love, Feeling

“Sometimes books don't find us until the right time.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Books

“All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them! D'you see?”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek

Life

“Most people don't cry when they're upset or frightened, but rather when they're frustrated. Your frustration is understandable. You've been through a most trying time." -Hodge”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

People, Understanding, Cry

“Bob Here's where I ask why don't you spend your time doing something safer and more boring. Like maybe administering suppositories to rabid gorillas.”

Jim Butcher book Summer Knight

Source: The Dresden Files, Summer Knight (2002), Chapter 10

“I hadn’t been a nerd, mind you. I’d just been the type of guy who spent a lot of time by himself, focused entirely on a single consuming interest.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Firefight

Guy

“The best way is not to fight it, just go. Don't be trying all the time to fix things. What you run from only stays with you longer. When you fight something, you only make it stronger.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Way, Fight

“Love me less, but love me for a long time”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Love

“I could have lied. I could have fought. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so I took a chance and called upon a Gallagher Girl's weapon of last resort. I flirted”

Ally Carter book Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Source: Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Girl, Chance

“Let his name be cleared and everyone else adjust their thinking. He had put in time, now they must do the work. His business was simple. Find Cecilia and love her, marry her and live without shame.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Love, Business, Thinking

“There is no time to leave important words unsaid.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Sad

“If it’s going to be a world with no time for sentiment, it’s not a world that I want to live in.”

Christopher Isherwood book A Single Man

Source: A Single Man

World

“The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right.”

Quentin Crisp (1908–1999) writer, Actor

Happiness

“By the time you read this, you'll be older than you remember.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

Reading

“To complain that man measures God by his own experience is a waste of time; man measures everything by his own experience; he has no other yardstick.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book The Mind of the Maker

Source: The Mind of the Maker

God

“Nature is God's first missionary. Where there is no Bible there are sparkling stars. Where there are not preachers there are spring times…
If a person has nothing but nature, then nature is enough to reveal something about God.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

God, Star, Spring, Nature

“.

I spent all this time building a relationship. Then one night I left the window open and it started to rust.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Night

“They're just memories now. Time to write them off.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Memory

“I am a person who works well under pressure. In fact, I work so well under pressure that at times, I will procrastinate in order to create this pressure.”

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (1968) Canadian writer

Personality

“Really, according to the shrinks, I am angry at everyone ever. Especially them.

I am all anger and resentment all the time.

Not one of them has ever suggested that maybe I lie because the world is better the way I tell it.”

Justine Larbalestier (1967) Australian young-adult fiction author

Source: Liar

Lie, World, Way, Anger

“There is an old and very wise Native American saying: Every time you point a finger in scorn—there are three remaining fingers pointing right back at you.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Source: Fated

“Any time there's something so ridiculously dangerous that no rational human being would try it, they send for me.' --Garion”

David Eddings book King of the Murgos

Source: King of the Murgos

“It's not a man's working hours that is important, it is how he spends his leisure time.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

“There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book III, Ch. 13
Attributed
Source: The Complete Essays

Music, Learning, Dance

“Frowning, she looked up. "You can't want to ravish me every time we meet."
Oh, yes, he could. Demon gritted his teeth…”

Stephanie Laurens (1943) Australian writer

Source: A Rogue's Proposal

“And there is a time, glorious too in its own way, when one scarcely exists, when one is a complete void. I mean, when boredom seems the very stuff of life.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Life, Way

“When you can't figure out what to do, it's time for a nap.”

Mason Cooley (1927–2002) American academic

“When we're identified with Awareness, we're no longer living in a world of polarities. Everything is present at the same time.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

World

“The cloak of the past is cut from patches of feeling, and sewn with rebus threads. Most of the time, the best we can do is wrap it around ourselves for comfort or drag it behind us as we struggle to go on.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Feeling, Past

“Isabelle with her whip and boots and knives would chop anyone who tried to pen her up in a tower into pieces, build a bridge out of the remains, and walk carelessly to freedom, her hair looking fabulous the entire time.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Clary, pg. 149
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Freedom

“The idea that each corporation can be a feudal monarchy and yet behave in its corporate action like a democratic citizen concerned for the world we live in is one of the great absurdities of our time”

Kim Stanley Robinson book Antarctica

Source: Antarctica

World, Idea

“The pause makes you think the song will end. And then the song isn't really over, so you're relieved. But then the song does actually end, because every song ends, obviously, and THAT. TIME. THE. END. IS. FOR. REAL.”

Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad

Source: A Visit from the Goon Squad

Thinking

“You know how I know she's your most important person? You pick her every time.”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Personality

“Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time rich and cash poor.”

Cory Doctorow Little Brother

Source: Little Brother (2008)

“I did not marry the first girl that I fell in love with, because there was a tremendous religious conflict, at the time.
She was an atheist, and I was an agnostic.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Love, Girl

“The time for crying with your girlfriends about a broken heart is over chocolate ice cream
and chick flicks—not stun guns and bulletproof vests.”

Ally Carter I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Source: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Heart, Cry

“Time keeps on… slippin'… slippin'… slippin' into the future.”

Jessica Bird book Covet

Source: Covet

Future

“Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Volume 1 [Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1860] ( p. 336 https://books.google.com/books?id=rszxUvpszaMC&pg=PA336) <br class="br">Also in The King of Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins by Catherine Peters ( p. 224 https://books.google.com/books?id=T0AABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA224) <br class="br">Source: The Woman in White (1859)

“But you weren't born expecting that kind of beauty in everyone, all the time. You just got programmed into thinking anything else is ugly.”

Scott Westerfeld book Uglies

Source: Uglies

Beauty, Thinking

“You cannot say 'no' to the people you love, not often. That's the secret. And then when you do, it has to sound like a 'yes'. Or you have to make them say 'no.' You have to take time and trouble.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Love, People, Secret

“He was a romantic in his own harsh way…yet he was also realist enough to know that some times love actually did conquer all.”

Stephen King book The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

Source: The Drawing of the Three

Love, Way

“Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Daily Telegram #1172, Will Rogers Sees No Value In All The Time We Save (28 April 1930)
Daily telegrams

Happy, Life, Funny

“In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing
About the dark times.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

In den finsteren Zeiten
Wird da auch gesungen werden?
Da wird auch gesungen werden.
Von den finsteren Zeiten.
"Motto to the 'Svendborg Poems' " [Motto der 'Svendborger Gedichte] (1939), trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 320
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Singing

“Joel, lad, school is about learning to learn. If you don't practice studying things you don't like, then you'll have a very hard time in life.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Rithmatist

Life, School, Study, Learning

“If time heals all wounds, and a book can hold a person's entire life, then you can speed up the process with a pulp time warp.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: Honey, Baby, Sweetheart

Life, Books, Personality, Speed

“I was waiting for the longest time, she said. I thought you forgot.

It is hard to forget, I said, when there is such an empty space when you are gone.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

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

Waiting, Forgetting

“In war-time,’ I said, ‘truth is so precious she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”

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

Discussion of Operation Overlord with Stalin at the Teheran Conference (November 30, 1943); in The Second World War, Volume V : Closing the Ring (1952), Chapter 21 (Teheran: The Crux), p. 338.
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Variant: In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

War, Truth

“I was slipping, man, and it was definetly time to get a grip.”

Wendelin Van Draanen Flipped

Source: Flipped