Quotes about time
page 53

“I'll never fall in love again… it's like having two souls at the same time.”

Gabriel García Márquez book The General in His Labyrinth

Source: The General in His Labyrinth

Love, Soul

“For the time being, the entire earth and the boundless sky.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“I sew his ears on from time to time, sure.”

Patrick O'Brian book Post Captain

Source: Post Captain

“There is no hurry. Time means nothing
to you.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

“We are all unkind from time to time. We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Variant: We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.
Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Change, Parting

“We are not meant to know the time or the nature of our deaths (for all of us secretly hope that we may be immortal).”

John Connolly The Book of Lost Things

Source: The Book of Lost Things

Death, Hope, Nature

“It is a time of quiet joy, the sunny morning. When the glittery dew is on the mallow weeds, each leaf holds a jewel which is beautiful if not valuable. This is no time for hurry or for bustle. Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning.”

John Steinbeck book Tortilla Flat

Source: Tortilla Flat

Beauty, Joy

“The whole summer lay ahead of us-time to rest, time to wait. And when the future comes-no matter what comes with it-I'll be smarter. I'll be stronger. I'll be ready.”

Ally Carter Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Source: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Waiting, Future, Summer

“God, I needed you," he murmured. "I can't even tell you how many times I thought about this. The funny thing is, I don't need you any less now. I think I need you more."
~Shane~”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Carpe Corpus

God, Thinking

“If I shut my eyes, I believed, I would disappear. To make it through, I had to be present the whole time.”

Alice Sebold book Lucky

Source: Lucky

“IT was the time of day when Lake Eden residents decided it was too late for a breakfast cookie and too early for a lunch cookie.”

Joanne Fluke book Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder

Source: Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder

“Time just gets away from us.”

Charles Portis book True Grit

Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 7, p. 215 : thoughts of 'Mattie Ross'

“Last time I saw a mouth like that, it had a hook in it.”

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian

“Certain things, certain events, seem inexplicable only for a time: up to the moment when the veil is torn aside.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Source: The Judges

“Don't look now, but that's my ex over there."
Surely I'm not the only one who takes "don't look now" as "there's no better time than now." I looked.
"Bad, Ali!" Another slap to my arm. "Bad, bad, bad Ali! Have you no self control?”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Alice in Zombieland

“There are certain outfits you have that make you feel good every time you wear them, and then there are outfits where you wore them too many times in a row because you liked them so much, and now they just feel like garbage.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Feeling

“He wasn't surprised. He was used to this anticlimactic feeling, where by the time you've done all the work to get something you don't even want it anymore.”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

Feeling

“During this time we've been apart, it's you I've thought of when I'm at my weakest, and you who have pulled me through.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

“It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue, and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

People, Drink

“It took him a long, miserable time before he realized the truth of things: There is a great deal of difference between a penis and a heart.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Truth, Heart

“I decided it was well past time to take him home and place him in bosom of his family. If you had rather I put him in an orphanage, I fully understand.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Midnight Heir

Family, Home, Understanding, Past

“If you're silent for a long time, people just arrive in your mind.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

People

““Fifty years,” I hackneyed, “is a long time.”
“Not when you’re looking back at them,” she said. “You wonder how they vanished so quickly.””

Isaac Asimov book I, Robot

“Introduction”, p. 8
Source: I, Robot (1950)

“Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.”

Gloria Naylor (1950–2016) American writer

Friendship, For Friend, For Bestfriend, People

“Trust yourself, because as Oprah says, doubt means don't every time”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken: The Smart Girl's Break-Up Buddy

“And for the first time in my life, I saw something new reflected in the eyes that saw me. Respect. It taught me a very valuable lesson. That dreams have power only over your own mind. But with money you can have power over the minds of others”

Vikas Swarup (1961) Indian novelist and diplomat

Source: Q A: Slumdog Millionaire

Life, Money, Dreams

“No. Real love takes time to build. What you feel is just infatuation. (Geary)
But it doesn’t feel temporary. (Arik)
It never does at its onset. It’s only in hindsight that we realize the difference between infatuation and love. (Geary)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: The Dream Hunter

Love, Feeling

“You are the best person I've met in years, and if I'd met you in a year's time, or maybe even a few months, I know we could be happy together, but I can't give you what you need.”

Jane Green (1968) British writer

Source: Mr. Maybe

Personality, Happiness

“I love you, Elizabeth… and more than that, I like you. I enjoy spending time with you.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Lucky One

Source: The Lucky One

Love

“At times to be silent is to lie. You will win because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince. For to convince you need to persuade. And in order to persuade you would need what you lack: Reason and Right”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

Lie

“Life's not easy for anyone. Everyone has scars they're afraid to show and we all get slammed headfirst into a proverbial locker from time to time by someone bigger and badder.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Life

“I was supposed to be having the time of my life.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Life

“Tonight, I feel like my whole body is made out of memories. I'm a mix-tape, a cassette that's been rewound so many times you can hear the fingerprints smudged on the tape.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Love Is a Mix Tape

Feeling, Memory

“Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth

People, Books, Reading

“They's times when how you feel got to be kep' to yourself.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

Feeling

“None of you appreciate me. Why is it so hard to believe that I could make a real contribution in these dark times? My cigarettes and I are going outside. At least they show me respect.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

“And I a smiling woman. I am only thirty. And like the cat I have nine times to die.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Smile, Cats

“Living was okay, but it wasn't the breaths people took that measured a life. It was the moments that took those breaths away that mattered the most. And Dev did that every time he looked at her. Naked or not.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: No Mercy

Life, People

“Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets stuck to the roof of your mouth.”

Janet Evanovich (1943) Novelist

Birthday, Life, Lying, Birthday

“I know you look both ways before you cross the street, but I want you to look both ways a second time, because I told you to.”

Jonathan Safran Foer (1977) Novelist

Way

“Why is it," he said, one time, at the subway entrance, "I feel I've known you so many years?"
"Because I like you," she said, "and I don't want anything from you.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Relationship, Feeling

“That's my answer to the question what is your strongest emotion, if you ever want to ask me: Curiosity, old bean. Curiosity every time.”

Elaine Dundy (1921–2008) American journalist, actress

Source: The Dud Avocado

Question

“[When] he's here, he's always reading. He says books stop time. I myself think he's crazy… Don't tell anyone, but when he reads something that he likes he gets real happy, turns on the music, and dances by himself, or with a broom sometimes.”

Mark Helprin book Winter's Tale

Source: Winter's Tale

Books, Music, Thinking, Reading

“Sorry," [Hamlet] said, rubbing his temples. "I don't know what came over me. All of a sudden I had this overwhelming desire to talk for a very long time without actually doing anything.”

Jasper Fforde book Something Rotten

Source: Something Rotten

“Though the details differ across the world, no known culture lacks some version of the time-consuming, wealth consuming, hostility provoking rituals, the anti-factual, counter-productive fantasies of religion.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion

Hostility, World, Religion, Wealth

“The next time you try to seduce anyone, don't do it with talk, with words. Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Women, Men

“We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

Feeling, Understanding

“There had been times when he knew, somewhere in him, that he would get used to it, whatever it was, because he had learnt that some hard things became softer after a very little while.”

Nick Hornby About a Boy

Source: About a Boy (1998), Ch. 3

“Don't think about what you’ll tell people afterward. The time is here and now. Make the most of it.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph

People, Thinking

“You cannot be the person they know and the great, glorious person you want to become. Not at the same time.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

Personality

“I'd like to say I took the news well.
The truth was, I wanted to strangle the Hunters of Artemis one eternal maiden at a time.
--Percy Jackson”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Truth

“All broken hearts are circumstantial. Every lovelorn jerk is the victim of bad timing, good intentions, and someone else’s poor decision making.”

Joshua Ferris Then We Came to the End

Source: Then We Came to the End

Jerk, Decision, Heart

“Human beings, viewed as behaving systems, are quite simple. The apparent complexity of our behavior over time is largely a reflection of the complexity of the environment in which we find ourselves.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Source: 1960s-1970s, The Sciences of the Artificial, 1969, p. 53.

Behavior

“You've got to have as many good times as bad, or it all becomes too painful and too much work.”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Source: Bared to You

Pain

“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Drink, Fish

“Still clutching each other by the arm, they turned to watch the last stones plummet over the edge.

“I don't know how many times a day I can stand to watch you almost die,” Seregil gasped.

“Twice is my limit,” croaked Alec, sinking to his knees.”

Lynn Flewelling Luck in the Shadows

Source: Luck in the Shadows

“There's only so many times you can kick a dog before it turns viscous. (Julian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Variant: There were only so many kicks a dog could take before it turned vicious.’ (Acheron)
Source: Fantasy Lover

Dogs

“No time is no excuse”

Jason Fried software entrepreneur

ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever

“Now all the mute objects of my life seem to tell my story, to stretch back in time, if I look closely enough.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book Middlesex

Source: Middlesex

Life

“You see, a conflict always begins with an issue - a difference of opinion, an argument. But by the time it turns into a war, the issue doesn't matter anymore, because now it's about one thing and one thing only: how much each side hates the other.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

Hate, War

“Enchantment and seduction were fine means of persuasion, but when time is short, an awkward but quick concussion could better serve a girl's purpose.”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Source: Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d Art

Girl

“A Time For Prayer

"In times of war and not before,
God and the soldier we adore.
But in times of peace and all things righted,
God is forgotten and the soldier slighted."

-Rudyard Kipling”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

God, War, Peace

“Remembering is just an invention of the mind… It means that if you want to, you can remember anything, whether it happened or not… You don't need a time machine if you can remember.”

Rodman Philbrick book Freak the Mighty

Source: Freak the Mighty

“It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women (1868), Ch. 22 : Artistic Attempts

Women, Men, People, Learning

“How we remember changes how we have lived.
Time runs both ways. We make stories of our lives.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Under Heaven

Source: Under Heaven

Way, Change

“In the morning there was a big wind blowing and the waves were running high up on the beach and he was awake a long time before he remembered that his heart was broken.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Men Without Women (short story collection) (1927)
Source: The Complete Short Stories

Heart

“Only happy people have nightmares, from overeating. For those who live a nightmare reality, sleep is a black hole, lost in time, like death.”

Guy Sajer book The Forgotten Soldier

Source: The Forgotten Soldier

Death, People, Reality, Sleep

“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

Relationship, Romantic, People

“Eternity is said not to be an extension of time but an absence of time.”

Graham Greene book The End of the Affair

Source: The End of the Affair

“The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The new order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.”

Bob Dylan book Chronicles: Volume One

Source: Chronicles, Vol. 1

Past

“She's a librarian, Sim said. They're not teachers; don't give you half as much hassle. If there's a fire in the school and I've got to choose who I'm gonna save - a teacher or a librarian - the teacher's gonna burn every time.
(p. 24)”

Keith Gray (1963) American basketball player

Source: Ostrich Boys

School, Teachers

“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Courageous, love, Wise, Relationship

“He was wearing a look that she found odd and compelling - that amusement that didn’t seem to pass beyond the surface of his features, as he found everything in the world both infinitely funny and infinitely tragic all at the same time.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

World

“It was what we Japanese called the onion life, peeling away a layer at a time and crying all the while.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Life, Cry

“If he’s not gay and he hung out with you the whole time, he wanted to be. It’s boyfriend or want to be boyfriend or I guess gay. Those are the choices.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

“Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Reality

“For the first time, he looked at her, and she wasn’t a stranger, she was Clary—his friend. His family. The girl he’d sworn always to protect. The girl he loved as fiercely as he loved himself.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Lost Herondale

Love, Family, Girl

“.

At the end of the French movie, the lover sings, "Love me less, but love me for a long time.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Love, Lovers, Singing

“Life needed a fast forward button. Because there were days you just don't want to live through, not again, but they kept coming around and you were powerless to stop time or speed it up or do anything to keep from having to face it.”

Sara Zarr (1970) American children's writer

Source: Sweethearts

Life, Speed

“If you are killing time, are you damaging eternity?”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“My girlfriend: sophomore honors student, demigod, and—oh, yeah—head architect for redesigning the palace of the gods on Mount Olympus in her spare time.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Diaries

Source: The Demigod Diaries

God

“… the worst aspect of our time is prejudice… In almost everything I've written, there is a thread of this - man's seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Ellen Cameron May, "Serling in Creative Mainstream" (profile/interview), Los Angeles Times (June 25, 1967), page C22-23.
Other
Context: I happen to think that the singular evil of our time is prejudice. It is from this evil that all other evils grow and multiply. In almost everything I've written there is a thread of this: man's seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself.

“You needn't die happy when your time comes, but you must die satisfied, for you have lived your life from the beginning to the end and ka is always served.”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

Life, Happiness

“One ought to examine himself for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.”

Molière (1622–1673) French playwright and actor

Thinking

“… Time does not heal,
It makes a half-stitched scar
That can be broken and again you feel
Grief as total as in its first hour.
-Elizabeth Jennings”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

Source: Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

Feeling

“… My friend, there are some things that I cannot tell you. Some I will tell you in time; some, others will tell you; some you may never know, or you may be the first to find the answers.”

Robin McKinley book The Blue Sword

Source: The Blue Sword

“Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?”

D.T. Suzuki (1870–1966) Japanese author and philosopher

Source: Zen and Japanese Culture

Universe, Tea

“This was the time in her life that she fell upon books as the only door out of her cell. They became half her world.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Life, Books, World

“We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

"The Old Way of Thinking" http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Old_Way_Thinking.html, in The Progressive (November 2001)

War, Children

“Chong said, 'Do yourself a favor, Morg. Next time you're staring at a girl's boobs, look up. You'll be shocked to learn it, but there's going to be a face up there. Nose, mouth, eyes. And behind the eyes is an actual person.”

Jonathan Maberry book Rot & Ruin

Source: Rot & Ruin

Girl, Learning, Personality

“After all this time, I know exactly where I belong. Here. With Edmond. And that's how I live now.”

Meg Rosoff book How I Live Now

Variant: After all this time, I know exactly where I belong.
Source: How I Live Now

“Nothing is so essential as dignity…Time will reveal who has it and who has it not.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

Source: The Signature of All Things

“The entire time I'm burning in Hell, I'll regret each tear I made you weep. But if Hell were the price for twenty days with you, I'd condemn myself again and again.

- Cian MacKeltar”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Spell of the Highlander

Hell, Tear

“Don't decide yet," Hephaestus advised. "Wait until daybreak. Daybreak is a good time for decisions.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Decision, Waiting

“They say that even the brightest star won't shine forever. But in fact, the brightest star would live the shortest amount of time. Feel free to extract whatever life lesson you want from that.”

Philip Plait (1964) astronomer, skeptic

Source: Death from the Skies! (2008), p. 75-76
Source: Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End...

Life, Feeling, Star

“Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

Declaration at his 85th birthday party (6 January 1963), as quoted in The Best of Ralph McGill : Selected Columns (1980) by Ralph McGill, edited by Michael Strickland, Harry Davis, and Jeff Strickland, p. 82
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
As quoted without source in The School Musician Director and Teacher Vol. 43 (1971) by the American School Band Directors' Association

Life