Quotes about waiting
page 2

“You do have a story inside you; it lies articulate and waiting to be written — behind your silence and your suffering.”

Anne Rice book Pandora

Pandora (1998)

Silence, Suffering

“Shadows in shadows
He watches through
dreams
Wings black as Africa
Body strong as stone
Done waiting
The ravens call.”

Kristin Cast book Hunted

Source: Hunted

Dreams, Strong

“Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!”

Arthur Miller book Death of a Salesman

Biff
Source: Death of a Salesman (1949)

Fools

“I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or
wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

Thinking, Night

“so I wait for you like a lonely house
till you will see me again and live in me.
Till then my windows ache.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: 100 Love Sonnets

Housing

“I've always had this deep-down conviction that I'm not like everybody else, and there's an amazingly exciting new life waiting for me just around the corner.”

Sophie Kinsella book Can You Keep a Secret?

Source: Can You Keep a Secret?

Life

“Fair as the moon and joyful as the light;
Tot wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim; Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dreams.”

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) English poet

Dreams, Hope, Light

“Marriage can wait, education cannot.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Marriage, Education

“Let's don't wait forever for our lives to start. Let's begin them ourselves. Let's be fearless for once and say, we can do this.”

Cammie McGovern

Source: Say What You Will

“Everything comes if a man will only wait.”

Benjamin Disraeli book Tancred

Bk. IV, Ch. 8.
Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)

“God waits to win back his own flowers as gifts from man's hands.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

Source: Stray Birds

God, Flowers

“In that Holy Place where you tell Him everything and he understands; there are angels who stand in wait to hear his every command. How may they serve you and increase your joy?”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Angels, Understanding, Joy

“If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. If he has to make a choice, may he make it now. Then I will either wait for him or forget him.”

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

Hope, Life, Pain, Way

“She put her hand in his, and he clasped it firmly, knowing he had been waiting for her all his life.”

Barbara Taylor Bradford (1933) British author

Source: To Be the Best

Life

“Wait until next time," he warned. "I'll do things that'll make you lose control within seconds.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Variant: Next time I will do things to you that will make you lose controll in seconds"
-Dimitri.
Source: Last Sacrifice

Time

“It's you, so I feel that a person who will understand you, a person who will find you is waiting out there. So just keep on trying your best.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Feeling, Understanding, Personality

“It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”

Hugh Laurie (1959) British actor, comedian, writer, musician and director

Context: (Answering "What made you step up to making your own record?") I felt like I may not get opportunities to do this ever again, so it’s about time—it’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There’s almost no such thing as ready. There’s only now. And you may as well do it now. I mean, I say that confidently as if I’m about to go bungee jumping or something—I’m not. I’m not a crazed risk taker. But I do think that, generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.

Life, Feeling, Thinking, Time

“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Motivational

“We must hurry!’ said Mr. Wonka. ‘We have so much time and so little to do! No! Wait! Strike that! Reverse it!”

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Variant: We have so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it.
Source: Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Time

“Oh, I've a love, a true, true love, who waits upon yon shore… and if my love won't be my love, then I will live no more…”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Love

“Then I thought, boy, isn't that just typical? You wait and wait and wait for something, and then when it happens, you feel sad.”

Sharon Creech book Absolutely Normal Chaos

Source: Absolutely Normal Chaos

Sadness, Feeling, Boy

“Well, we must wait for the future to show.”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

Future

“It occurred to me that I was unhappy. And it didn’t feel so very terrible. No urgency, nothing. I could slip out of my life on a slow wave like this—it didn’t matter. I don’t have to be happy. All I have to do is hold on to something and wait.”

Helen Oyeyemi (1984) British author

Source: Mr. Fox

Life, Feeling, Happiness

“The point is, you have family and friends who love you. You have a world out there just waiting for you to conquer it. You have a life that will be anything you make it. That's the point.”

Malorie Blackman book Boys Don't Cry

Source: Boys Don't Cry

Love, Life, World, Family

“Don't wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it.”

Cathy Hopkins (1953) English writer

“Eyes watching always
Shadows in shadows they wait
A black feather falls

First accepted, loved
Then betrayed-spit in the face
Vengeance sweet like dots.”

Kristin Cast book Hunted

Source: Hunted

Love

“Too many people spend too much time trying to perfect something before they actually do it. Instead of waiting for perfection, run with what you go, and fix it along the way…”

Paul Arden (1940–2008) writer

People, Way, Time, Perfection

“This isn't funny. She was almost killed.'
'I'm aware. You're waiting to see if I will get angry.'
'I already know you're angry. You're sitting very still and you're talking very quietly. You're getting ready to kill someone.'
'I just need a name.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

“Do tears not yet spilled wait in small lakes?”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Tear

“Nothing would be done at all, if a man waited till he could do it so well, that no one could find fault with it.”

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal

Lecture IX
Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England (1851)

“Some people spend the whole of their lives sitting waiting for one train, only to find that they never even made it to the station.”

Joanne Harris book Peaches for Monsieur le Curé

Source: Peaches for Monsieur le Curé

People, Training

“I am so often accused of gloominess and melancholy. And I think I'm probably the most cheerful man around. I don't consider myself a pessimist at all. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin.”

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

As quoted in "The Joking Troubadour of Gloom" in The Daily Telegraph (26 April 1993) http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/feb93.htm <br class="br">Context: I am so often accused of gloominess and melancholy. And I think I'm probably the most cheerful man around. I don't consider myself a pessimist at all. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin. … I think those descriptions of me are quite inappropriate to the gravity of the predicament that faces us all. I've always been free from hope. It's never been one of my great solaces. I feel that more and more we're invited to make ourselves strong and cheerful..... I think that it was Ben Jonson who said, I have studied all the theologies and all the philosophies, but cheerfulness keeps breaking through.

Feeling, Thinking

“You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born. Fear not the strangeness you feel. The future must enter you long before it happens. Just wait for the birth, for the the hour of the new clarity.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Fear, Feeling, Birth, Future

“Jack: “Gwendolen, wait here for me.”
Gwendolen: “If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Life

“Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

"I Am The Walrus"
Lyrics
Source: Beatles Lyrics

“Mother told me once that some Westonians privately criticised Dad for retreating so soon. They apparently felt it would have been more dignified to have waited a week or so before running away. I think this view misses the essential point of running away, which is to do it the moment the idea has occurred to you. Only an obsessional procrastinator would cry, “Let’s run for our lives, but not till Wednesday afternoon.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

Source: So, Anyway...

Idea, Thinking, Cry

“There's nothing worse than waiting and not knowing what'll happen to you. Your own imagination can be crueler than any captor.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

Imagination

“Meet me where the sky touches the sea. Wait for me where the world begins.”

Jennifer Donnelly (1963) American writer

World, Sea

“everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait… there is nothing stronger than these two: patience and time, they will do it all.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Time, Patience

“Waiting is the rust of the soul.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón (1964) Spanish writer

Soul

“Fantasy was always only a reality waiting to be switched on.”

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

Source: NOS4A2

Reality

“No matter how far you are. No matter how long it takes him. Through Distance And Time I'll be waiting..”

Alicia Keys (1981) American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress

Time

“We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out…we creep in upon ourselves and with big eyes stare into the night…and thus we wait for morning.”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

Source: All Quiet on the Western Front

Madness, Night

“My books piled up before me for my use waiting in space where I placed them, they haven't disappeared, time's left its remnants and qualities for me to use -- my words piled up, my texts, my manuscripts, my loves.”

Allen Ginsberg book Howl and Other Poems

Source: Howl and Other Poems

Love, Books, Time

“Be patient and wait. Your mud will settle. Your water will be clear.”

James Frey (1969) American screenwriter and media presenter

Water

“Nice dress Zoey. It looks just like mine. Oh, wait! It used to be mine.

Aphrodite laughed a throaty, I'm-so-grown-and-you're-just-a-kid laugh.

I really hate it when girls do that. I mean, yes, she's older, but I have boobs, too.”

P. C. Cast book Marked

Source: Marked

Hate, Girl

“The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real. I know that, and I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle.”

Stephen King book Night Shift

Source: Night Shift

“To get up in the morning, wash and then wait for some unforeseen variety of dread or depression. I would give the whole universe and all of Shakespeare for a grain of ataraxy.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born

Universe

“Patience, grasshopper," said Maia. "Good things come to those who wait."
"I always thought that was 'Good things come to those who do the wave,'" said Simon. "No wonder I've been so confused all my life.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Life, Patience

“I guess I’m just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation’s laws.”

S.J. Perelman (1904–1979) American humorist, author, and screenwriter

"Captain Future, Block That Kick!," The New Yorker (20 January 1940) p. 23 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1940/01/20/captain-future-block-that-kick <br class="br">Published in book form under the same title in The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) p. 71

Law, Beauty, Girl, Madness

“Her affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being; it enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to touch her—doubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Life, Fear, Light, Past

“Oh, yesterdays are over my shoulder,
So I can't look back for too long.
There's just too much to see waiting in front of me,
and I know that I just can't go wrong.”

Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman

“Frank Sinatra stopped his car. The light was red. Pedestrians passed quickly across his windshield but, as usual, one did not. It was a girl in her twenties. She remained at the curb staring at him. Through the corner of his left eye he could see her, and he knew, because it happens almost every day, that she was thinking, It looks like him, but is it? Just before the light turned green, Sinatra turned toward her, looked directly into her eyes waiting for the reaction he knew would come. It came and he smiled. She smiled and he was gone.”

Gay Talese (1932) American writer

"Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" (Esquire, April 1966)

Smile, Cars, Girl, Thinking

“You just wait. I'm going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

World, Star

“Patience is power.
Patience is not an absence of action;
rather it is "timing"
it waits on the right time to act,
for the right principles
and in the right way.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Way, Time, Patience

“When faced with a decision, many people say they are waiting for God. But I understand, in most cases, God is waiting for me.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

God, People, Understanding, Decision

“Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Life, Heart

“I had to wait for someone special. Someone who would make my heart feel as if it's been trampled by elephants, thrown into the amazon, and eaten by piranhas.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Love in the Afternoon

Feeling, Heart

“It bothered me that whatever was waiting wasn't waiting for me”

Jean Anouilh Antigone

Source: Antigone

“Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

Malachy McCourt (1931) Irish-American actor, writer and politician

Personality

“Seek to learn constantly while you live; do not wait in the faith that old age by itself will bring wisdom.”

Solón (-638–-558 BC) Athenian legislator

Wisdom, Age, Faith, Learning

“Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time… The wait is simply too long.”

Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist

Time

“He's waiting for yu, young queen.'

Shocked, I stared at Seoras. 'Heath?'

The Warrior's look was wise and understanding - his voice gentle. 'Aye, yur Heath probably does await you somewhere in the future, but it is of your Guardian I speak.”

P. C. Cast book Awakened

Source: Awakened

Understanding, Future

“If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Weather

“I waited for my thighs and butt to uncramp. Of course, they didn't know the loosening rule. They were screaming things like *Are you crazy? Do you know we're thirty-five years old? Sit down and feed us a Twinkie!”

P. C. Cast book Divine By Mistake

Source: Divine By Mistake

“The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present.”

Alice Morse Earle (1851–1911) American historian

History, Time

“Take a note: it usually works better if you wait until I do something stupid before getting mad at me.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

Stupidity, Madness

“So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don't sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late. - Lee Iacocca”

Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American businessman

“Human pride is not worthwhile; there is always something lying in wait to take the wind out of it.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Lying

“The world’s bumper sticker reads: Life sucks, and then you die. Perhaps Christian bumper stickers should read: Life sucks, but then you find hope and you can’t wait to die.”

Ted Dekker (1962) American writer

Source: The Slumber of Christianity: Awakening a Passion for Heaven on Earth

Life, World, Hope, Reading

“Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.”

Carrie Fisher (1956–2016) American actress, screenwriter and novelist

Confidence

“Standing on a street corner waiting for no one is power.”

Gregory Corso (1930–2001) American writer

“Inside every lump of coal there's a diamond waiting to get out.”

Terry Pratchett book Reaper Man

Source: Reaper Man

“Patience is not the ability to wait but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind

Patience

“She was still waiting for him to come back to her, even though he wasn't going to. She was still holding out for something that wasn't going to happen. She was good at waiting. That seemed like a sad thing to be good at.”

Ann Brashares book Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Sadness

“Love's gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Love

“No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Travel, Light

“Daddy gave me real useful information to protect me in the real world. If anyone hits me, I'm not to hit them back. I wait until their back is turned, then hit them in the head with a brick.”

Fannie Flagg book Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man

Source: Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man

World

“The time is past when music was written for a handful of aesthetes. Today vast crowds of people have come face to face with serious music and are waiting with eager impatience. Composers, take heed of this…But this does not mean that you must pander to this audience. Pandering always has an element of insincerity about it and nothing good ever came of that.”

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) Ukrainian & Russian Soviet pianist and composer

Page 106; from a notebook entry (1937).
Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences (1960)

People, Music, Time, Past

“Back in the old days, when I was a child, we sat around the family table at dinner time and exchanged our daily experiences…. It wasn't very organized, but everyone was recognized and all the news that had to be told was told by each family member. We listened to each other and the interest was not put on; it was real. … A child needs to be listened to and talked to at 3 and 4 and 5 years of age … Parents should not wait for the sophisticated conversation of a teenager.”

Bob Keeshan (1927–2004) United States Marine

Essay in The New York Times (1979); as quoted in "Bob Keeshan, Creator and Star of TV's 'Captain Kangaroo,' Is Dead at 76" in The New York Times (24 January 2004) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/24/arts/bob-keeshan-creator-and-star-of-tv-s-captain-kangaroo-is-dead-at-76.html?pagewanted=all

Age, Family, Parent, Time

“After the failure of his first experimental explorations around Vicksburg, a committee of abolition war managers waited upon the President and demanded the General’s removal, on the false charge that he was a whiskey drinker, and little better than a common drunkard. “Ah!” exclaimed Honest Old Abe, “you surprise me, gentlemen. But can you tell me where he gets his whiskey?” “We cannot, Mr. President. But why do you desire to know?” “Because, if I can only find out, I will send a barrel of this wonderful whiskey to every general in the army.””

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Statement first attributed in the New York Herald, (September 18, 1863) in response to allegations his most successful general drank too much; as quoted in Wit and Wisdom of the American Presidents: A Book of Quotations (2000) by Joslyn T. Pine, p. 26.
When some one charged Gen. Grant, in the President’s hearing, with drinking too much liquor, Mr. Lincoln, recalling Gen. Grant’s successes, said that if he could find out what brand of whisky Grant drank, he would send a barrel of it to all the other commanders.
The New York Times, October 30, 1863
Major Eckert asked Mr. Lincoln if the story of his interview with the complainant against General Grant was true. The story was: a growler called on the President and complained bitterly of General Grant’s drunkenness. The President inquired very solicitously, if the man could tell him where the General got his liquor. The man really was very sorry but couldn’t say where he did get it. The President replied that he would like very much to find out so he could get a quantity of it and send a barrel to all his Major Generals. Mr. Lincoln said he had heard the story before and it would be very good if he had said it, but he did not, and he supposed it was charged to him to give it currency. He then said the original of this story was in King George’s time. Bitter complaints were made to the King against his General Wolfe in which it was charged that he was mad. “Well,” said the King, “I wish he would bite some of my other Generals then.
Authenticity of quote first refuted in “The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States” by William R. Plum, (1882).
Disputed

War, Failure, Falseness

“How wonderful it is that no one has to wait, but can start right now to gradually change the world! How wonderful it is that everyone, great and small, can immediately help bring about justice by giving of themselves! […] You can always — always — give something, even if it's a simple act of kindness!”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

"Give!" (26 March 1944)
Variant translation: How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before beginning to improve the world! [...] You can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!
Tales from the Secret Annex

World, Justice, Change, Help

“The genius continually discovers fate, and the more profound the genius, the more profound the discovery of fate. To spiritlessness, this is naturally foolishness, but in actuality it is greatness, because no man is born with the idea of providence, and those who think that one acquires it gradually though education are greatly mistaken, although I do not thereby deny the significance of education. Not until sin is reached is providence posited. Therefore the genius has an enormous struggle to reach providence. If he does not reach it, truly he becomes a subject for the study of fate. The genius is an omnipotent Ansich [in itself] which as such would rock the whole world. For the sake of order, another figure appears along with him, namely fate. Fate is nothing. It is the genius himself who discovers it, and the more profound the genius, the more profoundly he discovers fate, because that figure is merely the anticipation of providence. If he continues to be merely a genius and turns outward, he will accomplish astonishing things; nevertheless, he will always succumb to fate, if not outwardly, so that it is tangible and visible to all, then inwardly. Therefore, a genius-existence is always like a fairy tale if in the deepest sense the genius does not turn inward into himself. The genius is able to do all things, and yet he is dependent upon an insignificance that no one comprehends, an insignificance upon which the genius himself by his omnipotence bestows omnipotent significance. Therefore, a second lieutenant, if he is a genius, is able to become an emperor and change the world, so that there becomes one empire and one emperor. But therefore, too, the army may be drawn up for battle, the conditions for the battle absolutely favorable, and yet in the next moment wasted; a kingdom of heroes may plead that the order for battle be given-but he cannot; he must wait for the fourteenth of June. And why? Because that was the date of the battle of Marengo. So all things may be in readiness, he himself stands before the legions, waiting only for the sun to rise in order to announce the time for the oration that will electrify the soldiers, and the sun may rise more glorious than ever, an inspiring and inflaming sight for all, only not for him, because the sun did not rise as glorious as this at Austerlitz, and only the sun of Austerlitz gives victory and inspiration. Thus, the inexplicable passion with which such a one may often rage against an entirely insignificant man, when otherwise he may show humanity and kindness even toward his enemies. Yes, woe unto the man, woe unto the woman, woe unto the innocent child, woe unto the beast of the field, woe unto the bird whose flight, woe unto the tree whose branch comes in his way at the moment he is to interpret his omen.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Søren Kierkegaard The Concept of Anxiety, Nichol p. 98-100 (1844)
About

Fate, World, Education, Way

“If you're squeezed for information,
that's when you've got to play it dumb:
You just say you're out there waiting
for the miracle to come.”

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

"Waiting for the Miracle" (co-written with Sharon Robinson)
The Future (1992)

“Sei Shōnagon is a smug and horrible person. She acts so smart and is always writing in true [Chinese] characters, but if you look closely, you can find lots of mistakes. People who try that hard to be different from everyone else always end up falling behind, with trouble waiting in their future; and people who are that affected act all mono no aware and attend all the interesting events even when they're lonely and bored, so that in the end the affectation stops being an act. How exactly are things going to end well for a person like that?”

Murasaki Shikibu book The Diary of Lady Murasaki

source http://no-sword.jp/blog/2010/03/iced_cream.html <br class="br">The Diary of Lady Murasaki

People, Future, Personality

“I woke up this morning and fell out of bed;
Trouble waiting to happen.
Should've quit while I was ahead;
Trouble waiting to happen.
I turned on the news to the Third World War,
Opened up the paper to World War IV.
Just when I thought it was safe to be bored,
Trouble waiting to happen.”

Warren Zevon (1947–2003) American singer-songwriter

"Trouble Waiting to Happen", written by Warren Zevon and J. D. Souther
Sentimental Hygiene (1987)

War, World

“Last night I saw you in my dreams/Now I can't wait to go to sleep/And this life is all a dream/So my real life starts when I go to sleep.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

"Hey Mama", Live Grammy Performance, February 2008
Lyrics, 808s & Heartbreak (2008)

Life, Dreams, Sleep, Night

“She knew the life-long martyrdom,
The weariness, the endless pain
Of waiting for some one to come
Who nevermore would come again.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Vittoria Colonna

Vittoria Colonna.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Life, Pain

“I used to think, if I could realise I'd die
Then I would be a lot nicer
Used to believe in a lot more
Now I just see straight ahead
That's not to say I don't have good times
But as for my days, I spend them waiting…”

Jenny Lewis (1976) American actor, singer-songwriter

"Science vs. Romance"
Song lyrics, Take Offs and Landings (2001)

Thinking, Time

“The doctor begins to lose freedom.... First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then doctors aren’t equally divided geographically. So a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him, you can't live in that town. They already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it's only a short step to dictating where he will go.... All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man's working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it's a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay. And pretty soon your son won't decide, when he's in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine (1961 LP)
1960s

School, Freedom

“MAGIC THEATER
ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY
I tried to open the door, but the heavy old latch would not stir. The display too was over. It had suddenly ceased, sadly convinced of its uselessness. I took a few steps back, landing deep into the mud, but no more letters came. The display was over. For a long time I stood waiting in the mud, but in vain.
Then, when I had given up and gone back to the alley, a few colored letters were dropped here and there, reflected on the asphalt in front of me. I read:
FOR MADMEN ONLY!”

Hermann Hesse book Steppenwolf

Source: Steppenwolf (1927), p. 32

Color, Time, Reading

“Welcome baby,
It's your turn to live,
They lie in wait for you, chicken pox, whooping cough, smallpox,
Malaria, TB, heart disease, cancer, and so on.
Unemployment, hunger, and so on.
Train wrecks, bus accidents, plane crashes, work accidents,
Earthquakes, floods, droughts, and so on.
Heartbreak, alcoholism, and so on.
Nightsticks, prison doors, and so on.
They lie in wait for you, the atom bomb, and so on.
Welcome baby,
It's your turn to live.
They lie in wait for you, socialism, communism, and so on.”

Nâzım Hikmet (1902–1963) Turkish poet

From Welcome (10 September 1961)

Hunger, Alcohol, Lie, Disease

“There’s no better feeling than winning when you’re up against it. More than anything I can’t wait to get back in the dressing room and celebrate with the rest of the boys.”

Joe Root (1990) English cricketer

After England vs. South Africa, quoted on Express.co.uk, "Revealed: What Joe Root said to inspire England to World T20 South Africa win" https://www.express.co.uk/sport/cricket/653851/Joe-Root-Moeen-Ali-World-T20-India-England-South-Africa-cricket-news, March 19, 2016.

Feeling, Boy

“Just heard Gen. White's proclamation that we "have Russia zeroed in from all directions." I am waiting now for Vannevar Bush and Ed Teller to announce that our new supersensitive radar picked up a rash of heart tremors from the direction of the USSR, immediately after White's remarkably insignificant statement, I could almost hear Karl Marx laughing in his tomb.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Letter to Lieutenant Colonel Frank Campbell (29 November 1957), p. 76
1990s, The Proud Highway : The Fear and Loathing Letters Volume I (1997)

Heart

“My kind of female power can’t be owned. I may feign enslavement, but I never let myself be unloved, even by myself, that would not do. I rarely argue - I consider. I wait till enough information is in and then the answer, answers itself. My imagination does tolerate empty space. Female power does not disagree with a compliment. Compliments shall be relished, like rich chocolate, like an inside caress. I make time to feel it, all the way up and down my body. Let the world please you. Use your female power. It was set up that way.”

Julie Newmar (1933) American actress

Female Power http://www.julienewmarwrites.com/story.php?idStory=122 (April 28, 2017)

World, Way, Feeling, Imagination

“[When asked if he is going to go to his high school reunion] "Yeah, I can't wait. I'm going to show up in a helicopter."”

Jonathan Davis (1971) Heavy metal singer, frontman for Korn

School

“American institutionalists were not theoretical but anti-theoretical…. Without a theory they had nothing to pass on except a mass of descriptive material waiting for a theory, or a fire.”

Ronald H. Coase (1910–2013) British economist and author

Ronald H. Coase (1984). "The New Institutional Economics." Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 140 (March): 299-231; p. 230; As cited in: Malcolm Rutherford (1996), Institutions in Economics: The Old and the New Institutionalism. p. 9
1960s-1980s