Quotes about moment
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“If I knew I was going to die at a specific moment in the future, it would be nice to be able to control what song I was listening to; this is why I always bring my iPod on airplanes.”

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Future

“Eric turned to me, kissed me on the lips very lightly, and looked at my face for a long moment. “He’ll spare you,” Eric said, and I understood he wasn’t really talking to me but to himself. “You’re too unique to waste.”
And then he opened the door.”

Charlaine Harris book From Dead to Worse

Source: From Dead to Worse

Kiss

“Just when you feel you have no time to relax, know that this is the moment you most need to make time to relax.”

Matt Haig book Reasons to Stay Alive

Source: Reasons to Stay Alive

Feeling, Time

“It was a bitter moment for us. We weren't two mature parents. We were just two kids playing grown-up. We still needed Mommy and Daddy's permission, blessings, and money to survive.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Money, Parent

“They claim a hidden corner of our hearts, all those moments that stay with us unscreamed. That's where loves, like elephants, drag themselves to die. It's the place where pride allows itself to cry.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Love, Heart, Cry

“Every Messiah fails, writes Litvak, the moment he tries to redeem himself”

Michael Chabon book The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Source: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007), Chapter 38
Source: The Yiddish Policemen's Union

“Joy is the goal of existence, and joy is not to be stumbled upon, but to be achieved, and the act of treason is to let its vision drown in the swamp of the moment's torture.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Joy

“Sometimes humans hit on a moment of profundity more complete than their dim minds could comprehend, and they took that nugget of truth and dumped it in the refuse for the bards and the poets to find, and mangle into yodeling paeans of love.”

Kelley Armstrong book Haunted

Source: Haunted

Love, Truth

“There's a moment when love makes you believe in death for the first time. You recognize the one whose loss, even contemplated, you'll carry forever, like a sleeping child. All grief, anyone's grief… is the weight of a sleeping child.”

Anne Michaels book Fugitive Pieces

Source: Fugitive Pieces

Love, Death, Sleep, Loss

“At that moment, she cannot think of a more reckless, irrational thing than choosing to become a parent.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Thinking, Parent

“I still don’t know if this is a good quality or a bad one, to be able to be in the moment and then step out of it.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

“You keep waiting for the heaviness to leave you. You keep waiting for the moment you never think about the ex again. It doesn't come.”

Junot Díaz book This Is How You Lose Her

Source: This Is How You Lose Her

Thinking, Waiting

“She had always maintained a cynical facade, using it as a defence against embarrassment, fear, loneliness… but at the moment she felt unusually vulnerable.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: It Happened One Autumn

Fear, Loneliness

“At the same time, we both pulled back briefly still oh so close. Everything in the word rested on that moment.
"We can't…" He told me.
"I know," I agreed.
Then his mouth was on mine again, and this time I knew there would be no turning back.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Time

“And in that moment, everything I knew to be true about myself up until then was gone. I was acting like another woman, yet I was more myself than ever before.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

“Sassenach,” he said against my shoulder, a moment later. “Mm?” “Who in God’s name is John Wayne?” “You are,” I said. “Go to sleep.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

God, Sleep

“A mother is a mother from the moment her baby is first placed in her arms until eternity. It didn't matter if her child were three, thirteen, or thirty.”

Sarah Strohmeyer (1950) American writer

Source: Kindred Spirits

Baby

“I would like to thank the people who've brought me those dark moments, when I felt most wounded, betrayed. You have been my greatest teachers.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Source: The Best of Oprah's What I Know For Sure

People, Teachers

“And at that moment Jude thought something that he would never forgive himself for.
He wished that he had never met any of them.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Forgiveness

“You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Variant: It's quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment right at the start where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you don't do it.
Source: Nausea (1938)
Context: I know. I know that I shall never again meet anything or anybody who will inspire me with passion. You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it. I know I'll never jump again.

Love, Thinking

“I can see the first apple teetering when I let the third arrow go, catching the torn flap and ripping it from the bag. For a moment, everything seems frozen in time. Then the apples spill to the ground and I'm blown backward into the air.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Time

“Mrs. May looked back at her. "Kate," she said after a moment, "stories never really end. They can go on and on and on. It's just that sometimes, at a certain point, one stops telling them.”

Mary Norton The Borrowers

Source: The Borrowers

“This is a brief life, but in its brevity it offers us some splendid moments, some meaningful adventures.”

Rudyard Kipling Kim

Source: Kim

Life

“Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for most part has been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Life, Beauty, Help, Parting

“There are moments when the heart is generous, and then it knows that for better or worse our lives are woven together here, one with one another and with the place and all the living things.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: Jayber Crow

Heart

“By the Creator at the moment of creation. May we shelter safe beneath the Light, in the Creator’s hand.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Source: (January 2004), Chapter 1: The Hook. p. 6

Light

“Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Manuscrito encontrado em Accra

Learning

“Try to remember the moment when all the stupid innocent things you thought about life and love, all the things you thought mattered, all the things you though were true… try to remember when they all turned out to be lies. —Kyle”

Chad Kultgen (1976) American writer

Source: The Lie

Love, Life, Stupidity

“Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom… is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go. -Anthony Bourdain”

Anthony Bourdain (1956–2018) Chef and food writer

No Reservations - Machu Picchu
Context: It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that's enlightenment enough - to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.

Wisdom

“And when her lips met mine, I knew that I could live to be a hundred and visit every country in the world, but nothing would ever compare to that single moment when I first kissed the girl of my dreams and knew that my love would last forever.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Love, World, Dreams, Girl

“In a single, silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation and helplessness, had fallen away. That morning, he believed, he was a new creation. Softly, he wept.”

Laura Hillenbrand book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Source: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Fear, Rage

“Life isn't a matter of milestones, but of moments.”

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1890–1995) American philanthropist and mother of John F. Kennedy

Life

“Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction. Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else, but go to the extent of living single thought by single thought.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

“That heartbreaking moment when you finish an amazing book, and you are forced to return to reality.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

Books, Reality

“There was a tacit understanding between them that 'liquor helped'; growing more miserable with every glass one hoped for the moment of relief.”

Graham Greene book The Heart of the Matter

Source: The Heart of the Matter

Hope, Understanding, Help

“Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don't rent them out to tomorrow.”

Jerry Spinelli book Love, Stargirl

Source: Love, Stargirl

“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand--and melting like a snowflake…”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Star, New Year

“At every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“The day is made up of 24 hours and an infinite number of moments. We need to be aware of those moments and make the most of them regardless of whether we're busy doing something or contemplating life.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Life, Business

“I wanted to quit and to do this forever, sleep in a bed and in a tent, see what was over the next hill and never see a hill again. All of this all at once, every moment, on the trail or off.”

Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods

Source: A Walk in the Woods

Sleep

“That was the moment he got the idea he possessed me in a certain way, and that was the moment I grew tired of him.”

Jamaica Kincaid Lucy

Source: Lucy

Way, Idea

“If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.”

Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849) Irish writer

Motivational, Success, Inspirational, Life

“He put an arm around his brother to help him up. And then, for a moment, he just held on.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: The Fury / Dark Reunion

Help

“Like the tender fires of stars moments of their life together, that no one knew of or would ever know of, broke upon and illuminated his memory.”

James Joyce book The Dead

Source: The Dead

Life, Star, Memory

“He says, "I have loved you since the first moment I saw you. I wanted you then, and when I thought you didn't want me, I turned my love into hate."

"Ethan…" Before I say another word his mouth comes down over mine and he kisses me.”

Marianne Curley book The Key

Source: The Key

Love, Hate, Kiss

“Zerbrowski said, "Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try."
It took me a second to realize that he had just quoted Star Wars to me. It made me smile, and in that moment I loved him, just for that.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Kiss the Dead

Source: Kiss the Dead

Love, War, Smile, Quotes

“Oh, brothers and sisters, families can be forever! Do not let the lures [or the irritants] of the moment draw you away from them! Divinity, eternity, and family--they go together, hand in hand, and so must we!”

Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Family, Sister, Drawing

“We all have moments of weakness. It’s how we recover from them that really counts.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

“Often when we realize how precious those seconds are, it's too late for them to be captured because the moment has passed. We realize too late.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

“Why do they not teach you that time is a finger snap and an eye blink, and that you should not allow a moment to pass you by without taking joyous, ecstatic note of it, not wasting a single moment of its swift, breakneck circuit?”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

Time

“Cassie Wright knows, the moment you make yourself available to any man, he starts to take you for granted”

Chuck Palahniuk Snuff

Source: Snuff

“We are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we are so deeply interconnected with one another.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

World

“Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.”

Robert Benchley (1889–1945) American comedian

Quoted in The Algonquin Wits, (1968) by R E Drennan, p. 5

“Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.”

Norman Mailer book Advertisements for Myself

"Hip, Hell, and the Navigator" in Western Review No. 23 (Winter 1959); republished in Conversations with Norman Mailer (1988) edited by J. Michael Lennon.
Source: Advertisements for Myself

“There are no truths, only moments of claryty passing for answers.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Truth

“In that shrinking moment he discovered that he had never hated anyone until now. It was a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Love, Hate, Feeling

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. book Strength to Love

Strength to Love, p. 25
1960s, Strength to Love (1963)
Context: The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige and even his life for the welfare of others.

Time, Courageous, Life, Business

“When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.”

Borís Pasternak (1890–1960) Russian writer

Life, Heart

“I feel a little like the moon who took possession of you for a moment and then returned your soul to you. You should not love me. One ought not to love the moon. If you come too near me, I will hurt you.”

Anaïs Nin book Delta of Venus

Source: Delta of Venus

Love, Feeling, Soul, Hurt

“Fletcher was always going to be your ex-boyfriend, from the moment you met him. He's just finally caught up with where he's supposed to be.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

“There comes a precious moment in all of our lives when we are tapped on the shoulder and offered the opportunity to do something very special that is unique to us and our abilities, what a tragedy it would be if we are not ready or willing.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“I used to think the worst feeling in the world is losing someone you love. But I was wrong the worst feeling in the world is the moment that you realize you've lost yourself.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Love, World, Feeling, Thinking

“I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

“But remember this if nothing else: I love you more than there are words or stars. I love you more than there are thoughts and feelings. I love you more than there are seconds or moments gone or to come. I love you.”

Malorie Blackman book Checkmate

Source: Checkmate

Love, Feeling, Star

“Each moment of our life, we either invoke or destroy our dreams. We call upon it to become a fact, or we cancel our previous instructions.”

Stuart Wilde (1946–2013) English writer

Life, Dreams

“Even in the darkest moments, light exists if you have faith to see it.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Faith, Light

“It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.”

Stephen Crane book The Red Badge of Courage

Source: The Red Badge of Courage

Men

“The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

“If a life can be ruined in a single moment, a moment of betrayal, or violence, or ill luck, then why can a life not also be saved, be worth living, be made, by just a few pure moments of perfection?”

Marcus Sedgwick (1968) British writer and illustrator

Source: Midwinterblood

Life, Betrayal, Perfection

“But sometimes the world disrobes, slips its dress off a shoulder, stops time for a beat. If we look up at that moment, it's not due to any ability of ours to pierce the darkness, it's the world's brief bestowal. The catastrophe of grace.”

Anne Michaels book Fugitive Pieces

Source: Fugitive Pieces

World, Time

“There are all these moments you don't think you will survive. And then you survive.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

Thinking

“He knelt by the bed and bent over her, draining their last moment to its lees; and in the silence there passed between them the word which made all clear.”

Edith Wharton book The House of Mirth

Source: The House of Mirth

Silence

“That is the mysterious thing about tragedy- it often strikes at the happiest moment.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: The Red Dice

“You can't always get the perfect moment. Sometimes, you just have to do the best you can under the circumstances.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Perfection

“He was going through one of those moments that you read about in books, when a character reacts in an unexpectedly extreme way to the normal discontents of living.”

Elena Ferrante book The Days of Abandonment

Source: The Days of Abandonment

Books, Way, Reading

“This was not my moment to be seeking romance and (as day follows night) to further complicate my already knotty life. This was my moment to look for the kind of healing and peace that can only come from solitude.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Life, Peace, Solitude, Night

“Goodness can endure a few moments; holiness is life-defining.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

Life

“Life and death were so unpredictable. So close to each other. We existed moment to moment, never knowing who would be the next to leave this world.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Life, Death, World

“I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.”

John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces

Source: A Confederacy of Dunces

“For it is only by forgetting that we ever really drop the thread of time and approach the experience of living in the present moment, so elusive in ordinary hours.”

Michael Pollan (1955) American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism

Source: The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World

Time, Forgetting

“For {she} had adopted the standard of the young: what there was in the moment was everything. And moments followed one another without necessarily belonging to one another.”

D.H. Lawrence book Lady Chatterley's Lover

Source: Lady Chatterley's Lover

“Until this moment, I had not realized that someone could break your heart twice, along the very same fault lines.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Heart, Heartbreaking

“Its funny how you can let yourself forget for seconds, how even in the heat of the horrible, you can have moments when you fool yourself into thinking it might all be okay”

Harlan Coben book Shelter

Source: Shelter

Fools, Thinking, Forgetting

“Blooming under a cold moon, we are like fireworks…
Rising, shining, and finally scattering and fading.
So until that moment comes when we vanish like fireworks…
Lets us sparkle brightly,
Always…”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

“Not the bee upon the blossom,
In the pride o' sunny noon;
Not the little sporting fairy,
All beneath the simmer moon;
Not the poet, in the moment
Fancy lightens in his e'e,
Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture,
That thy presence gi'es to me.”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

Pleasure, Feeling, Sport, Bee

“For you and for me the highest moment, the keenest joy, is not when our minds dominate but when we lose our minds…”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

February, 1932
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Source: Fire: From A Journal of Love - The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

Joy

“To put to rest any doubts you might have… I’m jealous of every man who comes within ten feet of you. I’m jealous of the clothes on your skin and the air you breathe. I’m jealous of every moment you spend out of my sight”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Scandal in Spring

Clothes

“The whole of life is but a moment of time. It is our duty, therefore to use it, not to misuse it.”

Plutarch book Moralia

Moralia, Of the Training of Children
Variant: The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it, therefore, while it lasts, and not spend it to no purpose.

Life, Time

“Every moment is a moment of decision, and every moment turns us inexorably in the direction of the rest of our lives.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: Simply Perfect

Decision

“At the moment, he kinda knew how the male praying mantis felt when he
was approaching Ms. Mantis, knowing the sex was going to be great but he was going to gethis head bitten off.
Ah, well. Some things were worth losing your head.”

Linda Howard (1950) American writer

Source: Mr. Perfect

Sex

“… That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

“I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound largemouth bass in my lake.”

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

Revealing his "best moment since he took office in 2001" to a German newspaper reporter, Bild am Sonntag. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4982338.stm (May 7, 2006) <br class="br">2000s, 2006

“In the sea of grief, there were islands of grace, moments in time when one could remember what was left rather than all that had been lost.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Night Road

Time, Sea