Quotes about moment
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“It's hard to remember that this day will never come again. That the time is now and the place is here and that there are no second chances at a single moment.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Chance, Time

“For if there is ever a moment when we are most vulnerable, it’s when we’re closest to the idea of the attained desire, and thus farthest from ourselves, which is when we’ll tread through any flame.”

Chang-rae Lee (1965) Novelist

Source: On Such a Full Sea

Idea

“My heart is empty & my life has no value anymore. Each moment a thousand tears.”

Lisa See book Peony in Love

Source: Peony in Love

Life, Tear, Heart

“You'll never see the moments coming that will for ever mutilate your life-at least not until after they've mowed you down.

-Savitar”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Life

“Know that ever about you stands the reality of love, and each moment you have the power to transform your world by what you have learned.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: One

Love, World, Reality, Learning

“Then spoke the thunder
DA Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed.”

T.S. Eliot book The Waste Land

Variant: The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Source: The Waste Land (1922)

Age, Heart

“That's how life feels to me. Everyone is doing it; everyone knows how. To live and be who they are and find a place, find a moment. I'm still waiting.”

Sara Zarr (1970) American children's writer

Source: How to Save a Life

Life, Feeling, Waiting

“Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

“Jeb climbed the ladder Fang had just lowered and I indulged in a moments fantasy about someone slamming the trapdoor on his head.”-max”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Fang

“So I learned two things that night, and the next day, from him: the perfection of a moment, and the fleeting nature of it.”

Margaret George book The Memoirs of Cleopatra

Source: The Memoirs of Cleopatra

Nature, Learning, Perfection, Night

“There are in life a few moments so beautiful, that even words are a sort of profanity.”

Diana Palmer (1946) American romance novelist

Life, Beauty

“Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

Time, Forgetting

“I am like a person whose hands were kept numb, without sensation from the first moment of awareness - until one day the ability to feel is forced into them. And I say "Look! I have no hands!" But the people all around me say: "What are hands?”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

People, Feeling, Personality

“It was my friend Frank, a writer in San Francisco, who finally set me straight. When asked about my new look he put down his fork and stared at me for a few moments. "A bow tie announces to the world you can no longer get an erection.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

World

“Then I reckon we got ourselves a good old-fashioned standoff."
…
Nobody moved, or said anything, for the next few moments.
"Old-fashioned standoffs are mighty borin”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Faceless Ones

Fashion

“At the moment of vision, the eyes see nothing.”

William Golding book The Spire

Source: The Spire

“I guess they're called moments because they don't last very long.”

Sarra Manning (1950) British writer

Source: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

“Please, I begged silently, please do not let my last moments on earth be me crammed into a tiny boat in the dark, surrounded by mechanical singing pirates.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

Singing

“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Book IV, ch. 11
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

Love, Happiness, World, Reality

“There are moments when mental overload can render words impossible.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

“The things she most wanted to tell him would lose their meaning the moment she put them into words.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world.”

Rachel Carson book Silent Spring

Source: Silent Spring

World, Nature, Time

“'There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, "Do trousers matter?"'
‘The mood will pass, sir.’”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Code of the Woosters

Source: The Code of the Woosters (1938)

Mood

“Is Hopper celebrating with you?”

“Hopper? Why would—” My mouth snapped shut for a few moments. “Oh. I, uh, kind of forgot about him.”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

“I would rather be a cripple and have your love for all of a single moment than to live as I am without ever having it.”

Rachel Hawthorne (1950) American author

Source: Waking Up With the Duke

Love

“It stands to reason that anyone who learns to live well will die well. The skills are the same: being present in the moment, and humble, and brave, and keeping a sense of humor. (361)”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Source: Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit

Sense, Learning

“Downtown. Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Light

“Time constricts and flattens, you know. It's not evenly weighted. Certain moments linger in the mind and others disappear.”

Christina Baker Kline (1964) American writer

Source: Orphan Train

Time

“You may have the worst timing since Napoleon decided the dead of winter was the right moment to invade Russia.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Winter, Time, Dead

“Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Civil Disobedience (1849)
Source: Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
Context: Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Context: To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it. After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.

Men, Thinking

“Most lead lives at worst so painful, at best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principle appetites of the soul.”

Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception

Source: The Doors of Perception

Pain, Soul

“You see, to me, for just a moment, despite all of the colors that touch and grapple with what I see in this world, I will often catch an eclipse when a human dies.
I've seen millions of them.
I've seen more eclipses than I care to remember”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

World, Color

“She has mischievious moments when she wishes she could get him alone on a desert island…”

George Bernard Shaw Pygmalion

Source: Pygmalion

“Every moment in life is an act of faith”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Variant: Life is an act of faith.
Source: Brida

Life, Faith

“Sometimes when you're young, you have moments of such happiness, you think you're living on someplace magical, like Atlantis must have been. Then we grow up and our hearts break into two.”

Stephen King book Hearts in Atlantis

Source: Hearts in Atlantis

Happiness, Thinking, Heart

“Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart.”

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…

Women

“these random unkind moment that catch you wen you least expect them.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

“Why should I believe any of this?'
It happens that fast.
I say, because I think I like you.
Marla says, 'Not love?'
This is a cheesy enough moment, I say. Don't push it.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Love, Thinking

“It wouldn't be New Year's without a resolution. I've resolved to take a moment every day for the rest of my life to appreciate what I have.”

Susan Beth Pfeffer book Life As We Knew It

Source: Life As We Knew It

Life

“It‘s funny how, when things seem the darkest, moments of beauty present themselves in the most unexpected places.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

Beauty

“we interpret life at moments of the deepest desperation.”

Roberto Bolaño book The Savage Detectives

Source: The Savage Detectives

Life

“Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure and the memory so possessed him that for the moment there was nothing to do but to pretend.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night

Source: Tender Is the Night

Pain, Pleasure, Memory

“All his life he would hold this moment as exemplary of what love was. It was not wanting anything more, nor was it expecting people to exceed what they had just accomplished; it was simply feeling so complete.”

John Irving book A Widow for One Year

Source: A Widow for One Year

Love, Life, People, Feeling

“When we travel, we are like a film at the moment of exposure; it is memory that will develop it.”

Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist

Travel, Memory

“It made me think that everything was about to arrive - the moment when you know all and everything is decided forever.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Thinking

“Happy moments, PRAISE GOD
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD
Painful moments, TRUST GOD
Every moment, THANK GOD”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

God, Pain, Happiness

“Absolutely nothing visible to the eye provides a reason for or even evidence of those terrifying shifts which can in a matter of moments reconstitute a simple path into an extremely complicated one.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

“So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Star, Waiting

“You know how every now and then, you have a moment where your whole life stretches out ahead of you like a forked road, and even as you choose one gritty path you've got your eyes on the other the whole time, certain that you're making a mistake.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Life, Time

“I'm almost there, almost to the barricade, when I thinks she hears me. Because for just a moment, she catches sight of me, her lips form my name.

And that's when the rest of the parachutes go off.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Thinking

“It is not desire.
Instead it is something deeper. I don't want to be with him
constantly and forever. I want to be with him for the moment,
and I want the moments to go on forever.”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

“Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader's Reflections on a Year of Books

Books, Reading

“It wasn’t Leo’s finest moment. Panic seized him, and he took off. His only comfort was that his friends did, too – and they weren’t the cowardly type.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“It wasn't that long, and it certainly wasn't the kind of kiss you see in movies these days, but it was wonderful in its own way, and all I can remember about the moment is that when our lips touched, I knew the memory would last forever.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Way, Kiss, Memory

“There, in the tin factory, in the first moment of the atomic age, a human being was crushed by books.”

John Hersey book Hiroshima

Source: Hiroshima

Books, Age

“Miraculously, smoke curled out of his own mouth, his nose, his ears, his eyes, as if his soul had been extinguished within his lungs at the very moment the sweet pumpkin gave up its incensed ghost.”

Ray Bradbury book The Halloween Tree

Source: The Halloween Tree

Soul

“The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible in-between. But there is still time to seize that one last fragile moment.”

J. Michael Straczynski (1954) American writer and television producer

Time, Past, Future

“You are using your own moral intuitions to authenticate the wisdom of the Bible - and then, in the next moment, you assert that we human beings cannot possibly rely upon our own intuitions to rightly guide us in the world.”

Sam Harris Letter to a Christian Nation

Source: Letter to a Christian Nation

Wisdom, World

“Things always seem to glide away.
They come to you, stay a moment, then leave again.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: Getting the Girl

“For a moment the garden, the noise, the stentch of blood and demon, vanished away, and he was alone in a soundless place with only Tessa. He wanted to run to her, wrap her in his arms. Protect her.

But it was Jem's place to do those things, not his.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“Memories were fine, but you couldn't touch them. They were never exactly as the moment had been, & they faded w/ time”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Variant: Memories were fine but you couldn't touch them, smell them or hold them. They were never exactly as the moment was, and they faded with time.

Memory, Time

“Each moment is a place
you've never been.”

Mark Strand (1934–2014) Canadian-American poet, essayist, translator

Source: New Selected Poems

“For a moment he felt a wild hope: perhaps this really was a nightmare. Perhaps he would awake in his own bed, bathed in sweat, shaking, maybe even crying… but alive. Safe. Then he pushed the thought away. Its charm was deadly, its comfort fatal.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

Hope, Cry

“I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“There was just a moment when things weren't quite the same, weren't quite as they had always been through the long friendship”

Lois Lowry book The Giver

Source: The Giver

Friendship

“Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.”

Agnes de Mille (1905–1993) American dancer and choreographer

“Never depend on those luck moments – they are gifts – but instead always build your own back-up plan.”

Bear Grylls (1974) Chief Scout, adventurer, author

Source: Mud, Sweat and Tears

Dependency

“One of the inescapable encumbrances of leading an interesting life is that there have to be moments when you almost lose it.”

Jimmy Buffett book A Pirate Looks at Fifty

Source: A Pirate Looks at Fifty

Life

“The moment I stopped spending so much time chasing the big pleasure of life. I began to enjoy the little ones, like watching the stars dancing in moonlit sky or soaking in the sunbeams of a glorious summer morning.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Remarkable Story About Living Your Dreams

Life, Pleasure, Star, Time

“The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin

Heart

“At the most difficult moments of my life, when it seemed that every door was closed to me, the taste of those apricots comes back to comfort me with the notion that abundance is always within reach, if only one knows how to find it.”

Isabel Allende book Paula

Source: Paula

Life

“But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

IQ84 (2009-2010)
Variant: It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.
Source: 1Q84

“… I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you. That you were the center of everything I did and felt and thought.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

World