Quotes about time
page 62

“When in doubt, poke the beehive with a stick to see if anything interesting flies out.
I clapped my hands. 'I had no idea Pit teams had such pretty cheerleaders. Can you do it again, but with more spirit this time?”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Idea

“Mistakes, mistakes, it's all I seem capable of at times.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“I paused with the pen in my hand. "He burst into flames?"
"He became engulfed in fire."
"Was his buddy made out of orange rocks and at any point yell, 'It's clobbering time'?”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

“A person could leave you so quickly. So much history and time and memories, but they snuck away from you, and other things took their place. How could you hold on? Wait. A bigger question. The biggest. How could you hold on and
let go?”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Story of Us

History, Question, Memory, Waiting

“I accept Time absolutely.
It alone is without flaw,
It alone rounds and completes all,
That mystic baffling wonder.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

“I've always liked the time before dawn because there's no one around to remind me who I'm supposed to be so it's easier to remember who I am.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Trusting Soul

“You have grown abominably lazy, and you like gossip, and waste time on frivolous things, you are contented to be petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and respected by wise ones.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Love, People

“We come from a generation of people who need their TV or stereo playing all the time. These people so scared of silence. These soundaholics, these quietophobics.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 3

People, Silence

“I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands.”

Dorothy Dunnett (1923–2001) British writer

Source: The Game of Kings

Men, Fate

“My mother isn't crazy. She simply has a harder time than most reconciling her reality with everyone else's reality.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: A Perfect Blood

Reality

“From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now convinced.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Girl, Country

“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Motivational, Back To Work, Graduation, People

“It is very strange that the years teach us patience - that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.”

Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) British-American actress

Source: A Wreath of Roses

Waiting, Patience

“I opened my mouth and kissed you then, the first time all night, attacked you and surrendered completely, and let’s get out of here. I’m ready, I’m finished, let’s not break up, no, no. Take me home, my boyfriend, my love.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

Love, Home, Kiss, Night

“And he says I have lousy timing”

Kelley Armstrong The Reckoning

Source: The Reckoning

“Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

“There comes a time when you're losing a fight that it just doesn't make sense to keep on fighting. It's not that you're being a quitter, it's just that you've got the sense to know when enough is enough.”

Christopher Paul Curtis book Bud, Not Buddy

Source: Bud, Not Buddy

Sense, Fight

“Most times we're so focused on what we think we want that we can't appreciate how happy we already are. It's only when we forget about our problems and help others forget theirs that we realize how good we really have it.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2008-11-11
Threshold Editions
141659485X
52
2000s
Source: The Christmas Sweater

Problem, Thinking, Help, Forgetting

“Memory warps time, as it does the sights and sounds and smells of reality; for what shapes it is emotion, which can twist what seems clear, just as the surface of a pond seems to bend the stick thrust into the water.”

Sherwood Smith book Crown Duel

Source: Crown Duel (Crown & Court #1 - 2, 1997)

Reality, Water, Memory

“Life was all about being in a certain place, at a certain time.”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

Source: Second Glance

Life

“When you're on your own, you look for signs. Sometimes you make them up, sometimes they're actually there, but most of the time you can't tell the difference from the two.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

“Most dancers I know, especially the talented and successful ones, seem to possess [my dog's] knack for living moment to moment. You see, their idea of time is related to those infinitely short moments when they are onstage being their superselves.”

Paul Taylor (1923–2015) american philosopher, born 1923

Source: Private Domain: An Autobiography

Dogs, Idea, Success

“We all didn't come into to the world at the same time so it makes sense that we don't leave it at the same time.”

Lurlene McDaniel (1944) American writer

Source: Too Young to Die

World, Sense

“People think they own time. They have watches and clocks and digital pulses. But they are wrong.”

Caroline B. Cooney Both Sides of Time

Source: Both Sides of Time

People, Thinking

“I've found out that falling in love doesn't have anything to do with time. It can take a year or an instant. It happens when it's ready to happen.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: The Calhouns: Catherine, Amanda and Lilah

Love

“Gibberish?" Jem suggested
"Pornographic?" said Will at the same time.
"Could be both," said Will. "Haven't you ever heard of pornographic gibberish before?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“Wasting time with the wrong person is just time wasted.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys

Personality

“Unfortunately most ways of making big money take a long time. By the time one has made the money one is too old to enjoy it.”

Ian Fleming book Goldfinger

Source: Goldfinger

Money, Way

“We’ve arrived,” Leo announced. “Time to Split.”
Frank groaned. “Can we leave Valdez in Croatia?”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Innovations
Essays (1625)

Evil

“Now Everybody has some secret goals in life… Sometimes you can get what you want and what you need at the sames time.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Life, Secret

“This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It might seem strange to start a story with an ending. But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

Sun

“We get used to living one way, even if it's a bad way or a hard one. When that's gone, there's a hole to fill. It's in our nature to try to fill it with anxieties and fears. It can take time to fill it with good things instead.”

Cassandra Clare book Lord of Shadows

Source: Lord of Shadows

Fear, Way, Nature

“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Introduction
The Disappearance of Childhood (1982)
Context: Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see. From a biological point of view it is inconceivable that any culture will forget that it needs to reproduce itself. But it is quite possible for a culture to exist without a social idea of children. Unlike infancy, childhood is a social artifact, not a biological category.

Children

“We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. Good night.”

J.B. Priestley An Inspector Calls

Source: An Inspector Calls

Men, Learning, Night

“Nothing like an arcane literary debate with your tyrannical master while you pass the time leading to your execution.”

Elizabeth Wein book Code Name Verity

Source: Code Name Verity

“You may have married her, but she is mine. Do you think I shall let you take her? She may be ten times your wife, but, by God, you shall never have her.”

Georgette Heyer book Devil's Cub

Source: Devil's Cub

God, Thinking

“Long books, when read, are usually overpraised, because the reader wants to convince others and himself that he has not wasted his time.”

E.M. Forster book Aspects of the Novel

Source: Commonplace Book (1985), p. 11
Source: Aspects of the Novel

Books, Reading

“I thought at the time that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself, in its totality, makes you safe.”

Lionel Shriver book We Need to Talk About Kevin

Source: We Need to Talk About Kevin

“I think it's good for a person to spend time alone. It gives them an opportunity to discover who they are and to figure out why they are always alone.”

Amy Sedaris (1961) American comedian

Source: I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence

Thinking, Personality

“Sucks to be left out of adolescence, sort of like getting locked in the closet on Venus when the sun appears for the first time in a hundred years.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Appearance, Sun

“Time can be a greedy thing-sometimes it steals the details for itself.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

“When it's time to die, go ahead and die, and when it's time to live, live. Don't sort-of-maybe live, but live like you're going all out, like you're not afraid.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees (2002)

“Time is too conceptual. Not that it stops us from filling it in. So much so, we can't even tell whether our experiences belong to time or to the world of physical things.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

World

“A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times; a dozen or two dozen times and he is great.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Reflections on Wallace Stevens”, p. 134; conclusion
Poetry and the Age (1953)
Context: How necessary it is to think of the poet as somebody who has prepared himself to be visited by a dæmon, as a sort of accident-prone worker to whom poems happen — for otherwise we expect him to go on writing good poems, better poems, and this is the one thing you cannot expect even of good poets, much less of anybody else. Good painters in their sixties may produce good pictures as regularly as an orchard produces apples; but Planck is a great scientist because he made one discovery as a young man — and I can remember reading in a mathematician’s memoirs a sentence composedly recognizing the fact that, since the writer was now past forty, he was unlikely ever again to do any important creative work in mathematics. A man who is a good poet at forty may turn out to be a good poet at sixty; but he is more likely to have stopped writing poems, to be doing exercises in his own manner, or to have reverted to whatever commonplaces were popular when he was young. A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times; a dozen or two dozen times and he is great.

“At the same time, my anxiety had turned into an anxiety quite lacking in anxiousness. And any anxiety that is not especially anxious is, in the end, an anxiety hardly worth mentioning.”

Haruki Murakami book The Strange Library

Source: The Strange Library

“You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are avenged 1440 times a day.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Epigrams

“When he stopped walking and kissed me a few minutes later, it was like time had stopped, with the air, my heart, and the world all so still. And it was this I remembered every other time I was with Marshall.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

World, Kiss, Heart

“Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Source: Adams-Jefferson Letters

World, Religion, Reading

“Don't bother her, don't try to talk to her, don't even look at her, or I'll fold you in half so many times you'll look like a tiny little origami werewolf.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“I'd like to say that this time I'd kill myself too.. but I've never had that kind of courage.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Mercy

Courage

“Please, sit down," Sharon said with another hair toss. I made a mental note to practice doing that in a mirror the next time I saw one. it seemed a useful skill, right up there with roundhouse kicks.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

“They accepted the pleasures of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies

Life, Pleasure, Hope, Sun

“Love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994)
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Context: Love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to reach out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if it means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness.
The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us.
And to save us.

Love, Life, Hell