Quotes about moment
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“If a coin comes down heads, that means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. Until that moment the two possibilities were equal.
But on another world, it does come down tails. And when that happens, the two worlds split apart.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

World

“It was one of those moments of perfect tiredness, of having conquered not only the work at hand, but the night who had blocked the way.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Way, Perfection, Night

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it. (21)”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Happiness, Joy

“I heard your song the moment we were born. And years later, it dragged me back from the lake of the half-dead when all I wanted to do was die. Each time someone tried to kill me, it sang its tune and gave me hope.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

Hope, Time, Dead

“To be truthful i am not entirely sure what people mean when they talk of happiness. There are moments of joy and laughter, the comfort of friendship, but enduring happiness? If it exists i have not found it”

David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy

Friendship, Happiness, People, Truth

“Reminds us that greatness lies even in the smallest of moments, in the humblest of hearts, and we shall, each of us, be called to greatness. Whether we shall rise to meet it or let it slip away is the challenge put before us all.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Heart

“If it is true that there is no greater sorrow than to remember a
happy time in a state of misery, it is just as true that calling up a
moment of anguish in a tranquil mood, seated quietly at one's desk, is
a source of profound satisfaction.”

Primo Levi book The Periodic Table

Source: The Periodic Table

Happiness, Mood, Time

“The one I wore to kill Jabba (my favorite moment in my own personal film history), which I highly recommend your doing: find an equivalent of killing a giant space slug in your head and celebrate that.”

Carrie Fisher book The Princess Diarist

Source: The Princess Diarist

History, Personality

“The first time I called myself a 'Witch' was the most magical moment of my life.”

Margot Adler (1946–2014) author, Neopagan, and National Public Radio reporter

Source: Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America

Life, Time

“Hapiness is as exclusive as a butterfly, and you must never pursue it. If you stay very still, it may come and settle on your hand. But only briefly. Savour those moments, for they will not come in your way very often.”

Ruskin Bond (1934) British Indian writer

Source: A Little Book of Life

Way

“It was one of those moments that would have had dramatic music if my life were a movie, but instead I got a radio jingle for some kind of submarine sandwich place blaring over the store's ambient stereo. The movie ofmy life must be really low-budget.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

Life, Music

“What was that?" Jace said. "Sorry, I think I fell asleep for a moment. Do, continue with whatever mesmerizing thing you were saying.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Thinking

“For several long moments we remained locked together, and I think I covered her hair with small sacred kisses, her perfume crucifying me with memories.”

Anne Rice book Merrick

Source: Merrick

Kiss, Thinking, Memory

“Meditate. Breathe consciously. Listen. Pay attention. Treasure every moment. Make the connection.”

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

“For a moment I felt the quiet hungering thing that comes inside when you return to the place of your origins, and then the ache of mis-belonging.”

Sue Monk Kidd (1948) Novelist

Source: The Invention of Wings

Hunger

“There are a few moments in your life when you are truly and completely happy, and you remember to give thanks. Even as it happens you are nostalgic for the moment, you are tucking it away in your scrapbook.”

David Benioff (1970) writer

Source: When the Nines Roll Over and Other Stories

Life, Happiness

“I measure the moment
in the heartbeats I skip”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

“If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for a moment.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

World, Flowers

“There is a strange moment in time, after something horrible happens, when you know it's true, but you haven't told anyone yet.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Time

“But no matter how much planning you do, one tiny miscalculation, one moment of distraction, can end it all in an instant.”

Jeannette Walls book Half Broke Horses

Source: Half Broke Horses

“Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Source: What America Means to Me (1943), Ch. 10

“I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Soul, Intelligence, Thinking

“I go wherever you go,' he says, launching us into the water.
This is our start. This is the moment it becomes real. We are married. We are infinite. Me and Conrad. The first boy I ever slow danced with, ever cried over. Ever loved.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

Love, Boy, Water, Dance

“We are made of stardust; why not take a few moments to look up at the family album?”

Natalie Angier (1958) American writer

Source: The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science

Family

“One moment flying in green sunlight, then the sky suddenly grey and dark.”

Elizabeth Wein book Code Name Verity

Source: Code Name Verity

Flying

“If he waits for the ideal moment, he will never set off; he requires a touch of madness to take the next step. The warrior uses that touch of madness. For - in both love and war - it is impossible to foresee everything.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Warrior of the Light

Love, War, Waiting, Madness

“Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French. One of the things which Gertrude Butterwick had impressed on Monty Bodkin when he left for his holiday on the Riviera was that he must be sure to practise his French, and Gertrude’s word was law. So now, though he knew that it was going to make his nose tickle, he said:
‘Er, garçon.’
‘M’sieur?’
‘Er, garçon, esker-vous avez un spot de l’encre et une piece de papier—note papier, vous savez—et une envelope et une plume.’
The strain was too great. Monty relapsed into his native tongue.
‘I want to write a letter,’ he said. And having, like all lovers, rather a tendency to share his romance with the world, he would probably have added ‘to the sweetest girl on earth’, had not the waiter already bounded off like a retriever, to return a few moments later with the fixings.
‘V’la, sir! Zere you are, sir,’ said the waiter. He was engaged to a girl in Paris who had told him that when on the Riviera he must be sure to practise his English. ‘Eenk—pin—pipper—enveloppe—and a liddle bit of bloddin-pipper.’
‘Oh, merci,’ said Monty, well pleased at this efficiency. ‘Thanks. Right-ho.’
‘Right-ho, m’sieur,’ said the waiter.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Luck of the Bodkins

Source: The Luck of the Bodkins (1935)

World, Law, Girl, Lovers

“Life has no meaning, the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Life

“No one can lose either the past or the future - how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess?… It is only the present moment of which either stands to be deprived: and if this is all he has, he cannot lose what he does not have.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Past, Future

“You know how chickens are, imagining the world coming to an end one moment, then pecking corn the next.”

Lloyd Alexander book The Book of Three

Source: The Book of Three

World, Imagination

“I'm holding back, delaying the information. I'm lingering in the prior moment because it was a time when other outcomes were still possible.”

Ian McEwan book Enduring Love

Source: Enduring Love

Time

“We’d met at a carefree time, a moment full of promise, in its place now were the harsh lessons of the real world.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

World, Time

“It's exactly at these moments, when all hope has vanished, that prayer has dominion.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Hope

“Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Betrayal, Perfection

“Simon kept pace beside Clary for a few moments without speaking before he said, “So what did I miss? Naked dancing ladies?”
Clary thought of the male faerie‘s torn-open ribs and shuddered. “Nothing that pleasant.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Dance

“Look at that,' she whispered, and then after a moment: 'I'd like to just get one of those pink clouds and put you in it and push you around.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

“How different this moment feels, for so many reasons. I tell myself that no two loves are identical - but that I don't have to compare anymore.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Love the One You're With

Love, Feeling

“We know enough at this moment to say that the God of Abraham is not only unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

God

“Old pain doesn't completely die. Time may soothe it, stoke over it until it looks like it has healed, but it never dies properly. It stays with you, it lives in the cracks of your soul, waiting for moments when you feel true pain”

Dorothy Koomson (1971) British writer

Source: Goodnight, Beautiful

Pain, Feeling, Soul, Time

“It felt like I'd been living underground, and for a moment, I'd been given this glimpse of the sky. Once you've seen that, how can you go back where you came from?”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

“Someday, we’ll run into each other again, I know it.
Maybe I’ll be older and smarter and just plain better. If that happens,
that’s when I’ll deserve you. But now, at this moment, you can’t hook
your boat to mine, because I’m liable to sink us both.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Source: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

“Why is it that weeks and months and years go by so quickly, all in a blur, but moments last forever?”

Jennifer Donnelly (1963) American writer

“It just happened. As though a moment comes when it's both necessary and natural to make a decision that has long since been made.”

Georges Simenon (1903–1989) Belgian writer

Nature, Decision

“Sometimes you are aware when your great moments are happening, and sometimes they rise from the past. Perhaps it's the same with people.”

James Salter (1925–2015) American novelist and short-story writer

Source: Burning the Days: Recollection

People, Past

“Whatever it is that pulls the pin, that hurls you past the boundaries of your own life into a brief and total beauty, even for a moment, it is enough”

Jeanette Winterson book Gut Symmetries

Gut Symmetries (1997)
Context: They were letting off fireworks down at the waterfront, the sky exploding in grenades of colour. Whatever it is that pulls the pin, that hurls you past the boundaries of your own life into a brief and total beauty - even for a moment - it is enough.

Life, Beauty, Past

“Sometimes I felt like I was waiting for my life to begin and more than anything, in that moment, I wanted to force some kind of beginning. I wanted things to be different than usual. I wanted to bend reality.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

Life, Reality, Waiting

“I deserve passion," she said. "I deserve to be loved- in every way. I deserve a man who'll give his whole heart, not the part he isn't using at the moment..”

Loretta Chase (1949) American writer

Source: Silk Is for Seduction

Love, Way, Passion, Heart

“You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You (1998)

Way

“Open your eyes now. I will. One moment. Has all vanished since? If I open and am for ever in the black adiaphane. I will see if I can see.
See now. There all the time without you: and ever shall be, world without end.”

James Joyce Ulysses

Source: Ulysses

World, Time

“And perhaps in this is the whole difference; perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Wisdom, Truth, Time, Sincerity

“… and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Love, Thinking

“I wonder how you're supposed to know the exact moment when there's no more hope.”

Sara Zarr (1970) American children's writer

Source: Once Was Lost

Hope

“And after we returned to the savannahs and abandoned the trees, did we long for those great graceful leaps and ecstatic moments of weightlessness in the shafts of sunlight of the forest roof?”

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

Source: Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

Tree

“The power of death signifies that this real world can only have a neutral image of life, that life's intimacy does not reveal it's dazzling consumption until the moment it gives out.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: Theory of Religion

Life, Death, World

“Know that life can only be found in the present moment.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Variant: Life is available only in the present moment.
Source: Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Life

“The heart may freeze, or it can burn. The pain will ease and I can learn. There is no future, there is no past. I live this moment as, my last.”

Jonathan Larson (1960–1996) American composer and playwright

Source: Rent: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical

Pain, Learning, Past, Future

“A moment might be a thousand different things.”

Kim Edwards book The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Source: The Memory Keeper's Daughter

“I'll paint you moments of gold, I'll spin you Valentine evenings…”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Painting

“Body cells replace themselves every month. Even at this very moment”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 25, Transit Completed at Movie Theater, On to The Dolphin Hotel
Context: "Body cells replace themselves every month. Even at this very moment," she said, thrusting a skinny back of her hand before my eyes, "most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.”

“There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Love, Time

“Is he… is Dimitri a Strigoi?"
Mason hesitated only a moment, like he was afraid to answer me, and then—he nodded.
My heart shattered. My world shattered.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

World, Heart

“We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Pleasure, Time, Forgetting

“Every man believes to some extent that the world began when he was born and, at the moment of leaving it, suffers at having to let the Universe remain unfinished.”

Maurice Druon (1918–2009) French writer

Source: El rey de hierro

World, Suffering, Universe

“We're all snatching precious moments from the peaceful jaws of time.”

Cressida Cowell (1966) British writer

Peace, Time

“Tomorrow. The word hangs in the air for a moment, both a promise and a threat. Then it floats away like a paper boat, taken from her by the water licking at her ankles.”

Thrity Umrigar book The Space Between Us

Source: The Space Between Us

Water

“My grandpa always said asking a question is embarrassing for a moment, but not asking is embarrassing for a lifetime.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Question

“You know how everything seems so normal when you’re growing up,” she asked plaintively, “and then comes this moment when you realize your whole family is nuts?”

Karen Joy Fowler book We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Source: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Family

“Seize from every moment it's unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Joy

“The Very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.”

Jane Austen book Love and Freindship

Source: Love and Friendship

Heart, Relationship, Romantic, For Her

“A minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Effort, Perfection

“Whatever you want, at any moment, someone else is getting it. Whatever you have, someone else is longing for.”

Laura Lippman (1959) Detective fiction writer

Source: The Most Dangerous Thing

“We have in fact only two certainties in this world—that we are not everything and that we will die. To be conscious of not being everything, as one is of being mortal, is nothing. But if we are without a narcotic, an unbreathable void reveals itself. I wanted to be everything, so that falling into this void, I might summon my courage and say to myself: “I am ashamed of having wanted to be everything, for I see now that it was to sleep.” From that moment begins a singular experience. The mind moves in a strange world where anguish and ecstasy coexist.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: L’Expérience Intérieure (1943), p. xxxii

World, Courage, Sleep

“It is in these moments of tender and ridiculous nostalgia that I know something inside me is still broken.”

Steve Almond (1966) American writer

Source: My Life in Heavy Metal: Stories

Nostalgia

“It was at that exact moment that I saw Peter walking down the hall toward me. He looked so good. He deserved his own background music.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Music

“Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else becomes eerily easy.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story

Life

“Allow me to explain how my whole life has prepared me for this moment. I am used to girls screaming, and your screams – will be sweeter than another’s cries of love.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Love, Life, Girl

“His face was like the autumn sky, overcast one moment and bright the next.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Autumn

“Wherever you are, at any moment, try and find something beautiful. A face, a line out of a poem, the clouds out of a window, some graffiti, a wind farm. Beauty cleans the mind.”

Matt Haig book Reasons to Stay Alive

Source: Reasons to Stay Alive

Beauty

“But the moment our eyes meet, I'm right back under his spell, a helpless hunk of steel to his irresistible magnet.”

Alyson Nöel book Evermore

Source: Evermore

“… nothing wonderful lasted forever. Joy was as fleeting as a shooting star that crossed the evening sky, ready to blink out at any moment.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

Star, Joy

“I keep asking myself," whispered Sabetha, giving Locke's arm a squeeze, "ARE we smarter than that woman's chicken?"

"At the moment, it's an open question," said Locke.”

Scott Lynch book The Republic of Thieves

Source: The Republic of Thieves

Question

“Most dancers I know, especially the talented and successful ones, seem to possess [my dog's] knack for living moment to moment. You see, their idea of time is related to those infinitely short moments when they are onstage being their superselves.”

Paul Taylor (1923–2015) american philosopher, born 1923

Source: Private Domain: An Autobiography

Dogs, Idea, Time, Success

“The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth (book), Ch. 2 : The Journey Inward
Context: One thing that comes out in myths is that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.

Light