Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary
Source: My Utmost for His Highest: Traditional Updated Edition
Quotes about time page 64
Carol Plum-Ucci (1957) American writer
Source: What Happened to Lani Garver
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
"Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution", sermon at the National Cathedral, 31 March 1968, published in A Testament of Hope (1986)
1960s
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon
Source: Flowers for Algernon (1966)
Zadie Smith book White Teeth
Source: White Teeth (2000)
Context: You hear girls in the toilets of clubs saying, 'Yeah, he fucked off and left me. He just couldn't deal with love. He was too fucked up to know how to love me.' Now how did that happen? What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll—then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.
Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990) British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
Source: Bitter Lemons of Cyprus
“Time was a face on the water, and like the great river before them, it did nothing but flow.”
Stephen King (1947) American author
Source: The Wind Through the Keyhole
“Dreams come true all the time, just not for the dreamers”
Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books
Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …
Nausea (1938)
Source: Nausea, The Wall and Other Stories
“A family is one of nature's solubles; it dissolves in time like salt in rainwater.”
Pat Conroy book The Prince of Tides
Source: The Prince of Tides
“I don't have alot of people to talk to. Not alot of people are worth my time.”
Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer
Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead
Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 1
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Bisco Hatori (1975) Japanese manga artist
Source: Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 5
“The best time to talk to ghosts is just before the sun comes up.”
Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer
“Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.”
John Donne (1572–1631) English poet
The Sun Rising, stanza 1
Paul Bowles (1910–1999) American composer, writer, translator
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer
Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense
Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist
Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Kresley Cole American writer
Source: Kiss of a Demon King
Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story
Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
The portion after the second semicolon is widely paraphrased or misquoted. Two examples are "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong" and "There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong."
1910s
Source: "The Divine Afflatus" in New York Evening Mail (16 November 1917); later published in Prejudices: Second Series (1920) and A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
Carl Sagan book Pale Blue Dot
Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 53
Context: Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe that utterly dwarfs — in time, in space, and in potential — the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors. We gaze across billions of light-years of space to view the Universe shortly after the Big Bang, and plumb the fine structure of matter. We peer down into the core of our planet, and the blazing interior of our star. We read the genetic language in which is written the diverse skills and propensities of every being on Earth. We uncover hidden chapters in the record of our origins, and with some anguish better understand our nature and prospects. We invent and refine agriculture, without which almost all of us would starve to death. We create medicines and vaccines that save the lives of billions. We communicate at the speed of light, and whip around the Earth in an hour and a half. We have sent dozens of ships to more than seventy worlds, and four spacecraft to the stars. We are right to rejoice in our accomplishments, to be proud that our species has been able to see so far, and to judge our merit in part by the very science that has so deflated our pretensions.
Brian Andreas (1956) American artist
Source: Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas
Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth
Episode 1, Opening introduction voice-over
The Power of Myth (1988)
“They were at the wrong place at the wrong time naturally they became heroes”
George Lucas (1944) American film producer
Source: A New Hope
“But who has time to write memoirs? I’m still living my memoirs.”
Rebecca Wells book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
Source: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (1967)
Context: Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.
And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.
Context: Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing, as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we're always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony. But we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for in all our history there has never been such a monumental dissent during a war, by the American people.
“Some people are old at 18 and some are young at 90. Time is a concept that humans created.”
Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist
“There will never come a time when I will be able to resist my emotions.”
Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States
Source: Tales of Burning Love
Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer
Source: Marrying Winterborne
“I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn't know I could commit suicide at any time.”
Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author
Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer
Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire
Katniss, p. 241
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire (2009)
James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) Soviet and Russian film-maker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director
Source: Journal 1970-1986
“Given enough time, I guess anything can look good. All it has to do is survive.”
David Sedaris When You Are Engulfed in Flames
Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames
“I do not want to pass the time. I want to grab hold of it and leave my mark upon the world.”
Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing
Source: The Sweet Far Thing
“The best liars are those who tell the truth most of the time.”
Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer
Kieran Scott (1974) American writer
Source: Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys
“Ever since time began, people have recognized their true Love by the light in their eyes.”
Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist
“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. I'll waste no time reading it.”
Moses Hadas (1900–1966) American classical philologist
“The human child – so much cannier at times than the stupefyingly ponderous adult.”
Markus Zusak book The Book Thief
Source: The Book Thief
“There are times when the law jeopardizes those who obey it.”
Kathy Acker (1947–1997) American novelist, playwright, essayist, and poet
Source: Pussy, King of the Pirates