Quotes about waiting
page 9

“One of the biggest mistakes girls can make concerning their romantic life is sitting around waiting for their prince to find them, rather than getting out there and finding him themselves.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Life, Girl

“Waiting. Like it or not, it's a skill all spies have to master eventually.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

“Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.”

Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American writer

Men, Strong

“Some part of me knew he would show up, that if I stood in one place long enough he would find me, like you're taught to do when you're lost. But they never taught us what to do if both of you are lost, and you both end up in the same place, waiting.”

Nick Flynn book Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

Source: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

Parting

“Wait. Why am I thinking about Krispy Kremes? We’re supposed to be exercising.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Big Boned

Exercises, Thinking

“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Longfellow's translation of Friedrich von Logau, "Retribution", Sinngedichte III, 2, 24. http://www.kith.org/journals/jed/2002/05/21/452.html.

God, Patience

“I love book signings: kids waiting in line for you to scribble on their new books, haha!”

Brian Jacques (1939–2011) British fiction writer known for Redwall animal fantasy novels

Love, Books

“It's hard to be the one always waiting. I mean, there's something to be said for the hero who charges off to battle, but when you get right down to it there's a whole story in who's left behind.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

“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, Time

“Do you ever wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it!”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

“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

Time, Patience

“Perhaps I’m tired of waiting for something I may never find.”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: Sweet Persuasion

“Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead. Most of these people are very immature. They lead "still" lives, waiting.”

Louise Penny book Still Life

Source: Still Life

Life, People, World, Change

“You have to imagine
a waiting that is not impatient
because it is timeless.”

R.S. Thomas book The Echoes Return Slow

Source: "The Echoes Return Slow" in The Echoes Return Slow (1988)

Imagination

“Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Books

“Well, what are we waiting for?… She said 'children.' I bet that's anyone under a couple of centuries old. Let's go.”

Donita K. Paul (1950) American writer

Source: DragonQuest

Children

“My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Volume II [Tauchnitz, 1860] ( p. 226 https://books.google.com/books?id=xAm2X8YfpJIC&pg=PA226) <br class="br">Also in The Secret Ingredient by Laura Schaefer [Simon & Schuster, 2012, ISBN 1-442-41960-1] ( p. 169 https://books.google.com/books?id=o1ctj37QuikC&pg=PA169) <br class="br">Source: The Woman in White (1859)

Past, Tea

“Adrian: Do you smell that?"
Sydney: “I smell the paint, and… wait… is that pine?”
Adrian: “Damn straight. Pine-scented cleaner. As in, I cleaned. With these hands, these hands that don’t do manual labor.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Painting

“In that high place in the darkness the two oddly sensitive human atoms held each other tightly and waited. In the mind of each was the same thought. "I have come to this lonely place and here is this other," was the substance of the thing felt.”

Sherwood Anderson book Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

“For a while" is a phrase whose length can't be measured. At least by the person who's waiting.”

Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun

Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

Personality

“I know that's an endorsement I've been waiting for," Skye added. "Perfectly adequate in bed. They should make that into a T-shirt”

Susan Mallery (1950) American author

Source: Under Her Skin

“I wanted to forget the past, but it refused to forget me; it waited for sleep, then cornered me.”

Margaret Atwood book Lady Oracle

Source: Lady Oracle

Sleep, Past, Forgetting

“I'll wait for you under the bluebells. I'll be there always.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Black Magic Sanction

“Use your head, Sep. Loads of wolverines. Hanging around waiting for super. Gtting excited. eating mint blasts. so what do you think they do?'
it must be here. they can't have eaten that… i dunno, Nik, what do they do?'
POO.”

Angie Sage book Flyte

Source: Flyte

Thinking

“When I dream, I dream of him. For several nights now he’s come to me, waving from a distant shore as if he’s been waiting patiently for me to arrive. He doesn’t utter a word, but his smile says everything: I’ve missed you.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Smile, Dreams, Distant, Night

“There's nothing more prized to a man than something he had to wait for, work for, or strugle a little bit to get.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Marry Bitches: A Woman's Guide to Winning Her Man's Heart

“He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths - so that he could 'come over' some afternoon to a stranger's garden.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

“Isn’t that what it means to be civilized? That you can wait to get what you want?”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Shadow

Source: Ender's Shadow

“It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

People, Coffee

“Nick! Wait!” – Kyrian
‘Wait, my gluteus maximus. Vampire was shy of a few quarts of blood if he thought Nick had any intention of not going Casper on him.’ – Nick”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

“You've mistaken me for someone else. Do not wait on me, Ms. Lane. Do not construct your world around mine. I'm not that man."
"Screw you, Barrons."
"I'm not that man, either.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

World

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Hope

“I thought I'd stumbled on Sleeping Beauty and her ugly sister,' said another voice, 'waiting for the kiss of true love to wake them from their slumbers. Forgive me if I didn't oblige.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Kings of Clonmel

Love, Beauty, Forgiveness, Kiss

“Yeah, I know. Terror Aerobics. Just wait until they get it at the gym. It'll be bigge than pilates. --Eve”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Lord of Misrule

“A woman who’s lived in a cage all her life. And hates it. Bored in there, aren’t you. Waiting for life to happen. And when it finally does, it steals from you what you loved most. So take back. Explode. Lash out. Blow up”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: The Alpha Alternative: JZB Sex Scene

Love, Life, Hate

“Yeah, I know, but word came from Artemis herself that she wanted him here. Looks like we’re having a psycho reunion this week…Oh wait, it’s Mardi Gras. Duh. (Talon)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

“I also don't trust Caribou anymore. They're out there, on the tundra, waiting… Something's going down. I'm right about this.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

“Felicity and I watch the dancers moving as one. They spin about like the earth on it's axis, enduring the dark, waiting for the sun.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Sun

“I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it.”

Jonathan Winters (1925–2013) American comedian, actor, and artist

Success

“Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born,
With nowhere yet to rest my head,
Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (1855)

World, Dead

“Time and tide wait for no man.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Time

“Miracles occur,
If you dare to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's
begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Angels

“Just Leo’s luck. A super-hot immortal girl was waiting for him on Ogygia, but he couldn’t figure out how to wire a stupid chunk of rock into the three-thousand-year-old navigation device. Some problems even duct tape couldn’t solve.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Stupidity, Girl, Problem

“There is no good reason. Don't waste your life waiting for good reasons… You'll wait and wait.”

Susan Minot (1956) American author and screenwriter

Source: Evening

Life

“Wait!" Conrad said. "Did someone… one of my enemies set this fire?"
Nix turned back with a grin. "Unless you'd pissed off some wirring-hungry nutrias, then I'm going with no.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dark Needs at Night's Edge

“The bank - the monster has to have profits all the time. It can't wait. It'll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't stay one size.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

Time

“What am I supposed to do,
Sit around and wait for you?
Well I can't do that,
And there's no turning back.
I need time to move on,
I need love to feel strong.
Cause I've got time to think it through,
And maybe I'm too good for you!”

Cher (1946) American singer and actress

Love, Feeling, Thinking, Strong

“then, as though it had been waiting on a near by roof for their arrival, the moon came slanting suddenly through the vines and turned the girl's face the color of white roses.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

Color, Girl

“It is no way to live, to wait to love.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

Love, Way

“If something takes too long, something happens to you. You become all and only the thing you want and nothing else, for you have paid too much for it, too much in wanting and too much in waiting and too much in getting.”

Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) American poet, novelist, and literary critic

“"Wait a second."
"I never understand why people say that," Luke said, to no one in particular. "I wasn't going anywhere."”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Clary and Luke, pg. 407
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

People, Understanding

“That's what's wrong with women. They want you to wait for them until they get ready and then they don't even tell you how they feel.”

Walter Dean Myers (1937–2014) American writer

Source: Slam!

Women, Feeling

“Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen.”

Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything

Source: A Short History of Nearly Everything

“She would simply wait on the bridge, calm and obstinate, until events, real events, not her own fantasies, roe to her challenge, and dispelled her insignificance.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

“It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, "Wait on time."”

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

People, Silence, Time, Indifference

“Remake the wild, a little at a time, each in your own corner of the world. You cannot wait for anyone else, even a god, to do that for you.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

God, World, Time

“I don't mind pointing out some of the failings of old age, because we are all headed in that direction, unless of course we take our own lives before we become a burden. I'm not advocating suicide, oh wait, I guess I am.”

Amy Sedaris (1961) American comedian

Source: I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence

Age, Suicide

“Life's greatest comfort is being able to look over your shoulder and see people worse off, waiting in line behind you.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

Life, People

“You're waiting because you thought it would follow, you thought there would be some logic, perhaps, something to pull it all together but here we are in the weeds again, here we are in the bowels of the thing: your world doesn't make sense.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Source: Crush

World, Sense

“Most vagabonds i knowed don't ever want to find the culprit that remains the object of their long relentless quest. The obsession's in the chasing and not the apprehending, the pursuit you see and never the arrest" - Tom Waits "Foreign Affairs”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

“they danced as though they'd been waiting all their lives for each song.”

Amy Bloom (1953) Fiction writer, screenwriter, social worker, psychotherapist

Source: Come to Me

Dance

“You have to wait for your mind to catch up with whatever it is it’s working on; then you can write a novel.”

James M. Cain (1892–1977) Novelist, short story writer, journalist

“I'll call you," he repeated.
"If you call me, I won't pick up the phone."
"You will wait by the phone for my call, and when it rings, you will pick it up and you will speak to me in a civil manner. If you don't know how, ask someone.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

“I am so tired of waiting.
Aren’t you,
for the world to become good
and beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
and cut the world in two —
and see what worms are eating
at the rind.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

World, Beauty

“He seemed to be waiting for me to move forward. Weren't we all.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

“I want to give a really BAD party. I mean it. I want to give a party where there’s a brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette. You wait and see.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night

Source: Tender Is the Night

Women, People, Feeling, Home

“I wanted to wake you straightaway, but I knew I had to wait several hours to ensure you were safely recovered."
"What! How long has it been?"
"Five minutes. I got bored.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Golem's Eye

Source: The Golem's Eye

“It was kind of soothing, these sounds of lives being lived all around me, for better or for worse. And there I was, in the middle of them all, newly reborn and still waiting for mine to begin.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

What Happened To Goodbye (2011)
Source: What Happened to Goodbye

“Goddamn it. Wait for me, Eva. I waited my whole life for you.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Entwined with You

Life

“I tell you such fine music waits in the shadows of hell.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Music, Hell

“Let us, then, be up and doing.
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow A Psalm of Life

St. 9.
A Psalm of Life (1839)
Source: Longfellow's Poems

Fate, Learning, Heart

“It's your fault, Eeyore. You've never been to see any of us. You just stay here in this one corner of the Forest waiting for the others to come to you. Why don't you go to THEM sometimes?”

A.A. Milne book The House at Pooh Corner

Source: The House at Pooh Corner

“Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself,
Counting this row and that row of moccasins
Waiting on the silent shelf.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Beauty

“God waited me out.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

God

“Nobles and peasants marry early. Businessmen tend to wait.”

David Eddings book Polgara the Sorceress

Source: Polgara the Sorceress

“I don't remember
lighting this cigarette
and I don't remember
if I'm here alone
or waiting for someone.”

Leonard Cohen book Book of Longing

Source: Book of Longing

Light

“Publishing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

Books

“Dammit, Dresden, if you want to know about me, wait for the autobiography like everyone else.”

Jim Butcher book Blood Rites

Source: Blood Rites

“For the yesterdays and todays, and the tomorrows I can hardly wait for - Thank you.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: The Book of Tomorrow

“It’s hard not
to jump out
instead of
waiting to be
found. It’s
hard to be
alone so long
and then hear
someone come
around. It’s
like some form
of skin’s developed
in the air
that, rather
than have torn,
you tear.

"Hide and Seek”

Kay Ryan (1945) American poet

Source: The Niagara River

Tear

“Waiting for Prince Charming?"
"Aren't all women? And you're waiting for Cinderella."
"Actually," Jared said slowly, "I'm rather hoping to find the Evil Queen. I think she'd be much more fun.”

Jude Deveraux (1947) American writer

Source: True Love

Women, Hope, Thinking, Evil

“I'm coming to believe that there are two kinds of people… those who choose to be masters of their own fate and those who wait in chairs while other dance. I would rather be one of the former than the latter.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Secrets of a Summer Night

Fate, People, Dance

“if love doesnt come first and linger after, if love cant wait and endure disappointment and seperation, then its not love.”

Robin Hobb (1952) American fiction writer (pseudonym)

Source: Golden Fool

Love, Disappointment

“A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.”

Tom Stoppard (1937) British playwright

Attitude

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

This phrase was created by reporter Sharon Begley in the end of a 1977 Newsweek article with an extended profile of Carl Sagan. It was a final conclusion about Sagan's work and the topic of hypotethical extra-terrestrial life forms. "Quote Investigator" http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/18/incredible/ <br class="br">Misattributed

Motivational, Inspirational, Success, Life

“Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else.”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

Life, Secret

“Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting”

Gregory David Roberts (1952) Australian writer and bank robber

Fate

“Maybe I'll be like that man in "The Hanging Tree'. Still waiting for an answer.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Tree

“Waiting for a special occasion to kill me? Christmas is coming.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Christmas

“He tried to tell me week after week to accept things as they were and move on with my life. But if there was one man who had put his life on hold to wait for something or someone, it was him.”

Cecelia Ahern book A Place Called Here

Source: A Place Called Here

Life

“There’s a lot of good waiting for you on the other side of tired. Get yourself tired..”

Andre Agassi book Open. An Autobiography

Source: Open

“Im waiting, for what, my kind of people, what kind is that, i can tell my kind of people by their faces, by something in their faces.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

People

“Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.”

Cormac McCarthy book All the Pretty Horses

Source: All the Pretty Horses

World

“Each woman is like an instrument, waiting to be learned, loved, and finely played, to have at last her own true music made.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Love, Music, Learning

“Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.”

Kathleen Norris (1880–1966) American writer

Books, Knowledge

“A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back — but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.”

Marian Wright Edelman (1939) American children's rights activist

Reported in Dick Richards, The Art of Winning Commitment : 10 Ways Leaders Can Engage Minds, Hearts, And Spirits (2004), p. 11.

People

“We are like roses that have never bothered to bloom when we should have bloomed and it is as if the sun has become disgusted with waiting”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Sun

“… you don't have to wait for someone to treat you bad repeatedly. All it takes is once, and if they get away with it that once, if they know they can treat you like that, then it sets the pattern for the future.”

Jane Green (1968) British writer

Source: Bookends

Future

“Wait, what did you just say? You're predicting $4 a gallon gasoline? … That's interesting. I hadn't heard that.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Whitehouse Press Conference http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/02/20080228-2.html, after being asked about the prospect of Americans facing $4 for a gallon of gasoline (February 28, 2008) <br class="br">2000s, 2008

“Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. book Why We Can't Wait

Source: Why We Can't Wait

Suffering

Quotes about waiting page 9

Quotes about waiting
page 9