Quotes about moment
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“So this was the rest of his life. It felt like a party to which he'd been invited, but at an address he couldn't actually locate. Someone must be having fun at it, this life of his; only, right at the moment, it wasn't him.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

Life

“Suddenly, I don't know what to say. It happens often to me. I know what I want to say, I think about whether it is what I mean, but when the moment comes to speak, I can't say it.
- Nana Kleinfrankenheim, Vivre Sa Vie.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

Thinking

“You create your future moment by moment.”

Chris Prentiss

The Laws of Love: Creating the Relationship of Your Dreams

Future

“Let me die the moment my love dies.
Let me not outlive my own capacity to love.
Let me die still loving, and so, never die.”

Mary Zimmerman Metamorphoses

Source: Metamorphoses

Love

“therefore i live for today-
certain of finding at sunrise
guidance and strength for the way.
power for each moment of weakness,
hope for each moment of pain,
comfort for every sorrow,
sunshine and joy after rain!”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

Source: Hope for Each Day: Words of Wisdom and Faith

Pain, Hope, Way, Joy

“And she is going to dance, dance hungry, dance full, dance each cold astonishing moment, now when she is young and again when she is old.”

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

Dance

“Measure the hope of that moment, that feeling. Everything else will be measured against it.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Hope, Feeling

“Any moment now…" The girl [Calypso] stared out at the water.
No magical raft appeared.
"Maybe it got stuck in a traffic," Leo said.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Girl, Water, Appearance

“Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Life

“Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Life, Future, Attitude, Peaceful

“One minute was enough, Tyler said, "A person had to work hard for it, but 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, Personality, Perfection

“There are certain mortal moments and minutes that matter. Certain hingepoints in the history of each human. Some seconds are so decisive they shrink the soul, while others are spent, so as to stretch the soul.”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

Soul, History, Decision

“As regards intellectual work it remains a fact, indeed, that great decisions in the realm of thought and momentous discoveries and solutions of problems are only possible to an individual, working in solitude.”

Sigmund Freud Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego

Source: Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego

Problem, Decision, Solitude

“one must not allow the clock and the calender to blind him to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle --and mystery”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams Reaching Your Destiny

Life

“I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. But it was not until much later that I was able to get any real sleep. In a place far away from anyone or anywhere, I drifted off for a moment.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Sleep

“To quote the Tsalagi, you should never allow your yesterday to use up too much of today. The past is gone and tomorrow is at best a maybe. Live for this moment because it may be all you'll ever have.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Retribution

Quotes, Past

“Think on it, Chani: the princess will have the name, yet she'll live as less than a concubine - never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine - history will call us wives.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

History, Thinking, Princess

“If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Quoted in A Lifetime of Peace : Essential Writings by and About Thich Nhat Hanh (2003) edited by Jennifer Schwamm Willis, p. 141

People, Parent, For Parents

“It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning, each touch has no past or no future, each kiss is a kiss of immediacy.”

Alan Lightman book Einstein's Dreams

Source: Einstein's Dreams

World, Kiss, Past, Future

“We don't know what kind of people we truly are until the moment before our deaths. As death comes to embrace you, you will realize what you are. That's what death is, don't you think?”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

Death, People, Thinking

“Trying to build myself up with the fact that I have done things right that were even good and have had moments that were excellent but the bad is heavier to carry around and feel have no confidence.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Source: Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters

Feeling, Confidence

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

19 September 1777
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791)
Source: Fahrenheit 451

Friendship, Heart, Friendship, For Friend

“I palliate the sufferings of others. yes I see myself as softening the blows, dissolving acids, neutralizing poisons, every moment of the day. I try to fulfill the wishes of others, to perform miracles. I exert myself performing miracles.”

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

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

Suffering

“Time was such an odd thing. One moment you could talk to someone, then suddenly, they were gone.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: Raven's Strike

Time

“Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

A Month of Sundays (1975)
Source: A Month Of Sundays

“Why do we even bother? Why do we make ourselves so open to such easy damage? Is it all loneliness? Is it all fear? Or is it just to experience those narcotic moments of belonging with someone else?”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Fear, Loneliness

“Don't roll your eyes. It punctures my dramatic moment. I want my dramatic moment unpunctured.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“And it was at moments like this that she had to remind herself that she was in love with him, or had once been in love with him, a long time ago.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Love, Time

“I don't allow myself to doubt myself even for a moment.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

“I have moments like that alot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Universe

“You will have a story in there… or a character, a place, a poem, a moment in time. When you find it, you will write it. Word after word after word after word.”

Patricia MacLachlan (1938) American writer of children's books

Source: Word After Word After Word

Time

“The key to a happy life is to have accomplishments to be proud of and purpose to look forward to, and at the moment I had both. How wonderful it was to be me.”

Jeff Lindsay book Dearly Devoted Dexter

Source: Dearly Devoted Dexter

Life, Happiness

“When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your time, you do your work well.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

World, Time

“The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Good Morning, Back To Work, For Team

“there is no moment more precious than the exact moment you are living now”

Obert Skye book Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo

Source: Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo

“… nothing momentous comes in this world unless it comes on the shoulders of kindness.”

Barbara Kingsolver book The Lacuna

Source: The Lacuna

World

“Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.”

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

“When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Love, Peace, Understanding, Joy

“Sam screamed the fun scream, and there it was. Downtown lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder. Sam sat down and started laughing. Patrick started laughing. I started laughing. 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

“I wanted for the moments in my life to follow each other and order themselves like those of a life remembered. It would be just as well to try to catch time by the tail.”

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

Nausea (1938)
Source: Nausea, The Wall and Other Stories

Life, Time

“Hello?" Isabelle called from the other side. "Simon, is your diva moment over? I need to talk to Jace.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“The seconds tick. They always do. The power of an entire sun cannot stop them even for a moment, and so death comes between the moments, like a thief of light in the dark.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: Black Blood

Death, Light, Sun

“By the time a person has achieved years adequate for choosing a direction, the die is cast and the moment has long since passed which determined the future.”

Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948) Novelist, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Time, Future, Personality

“You know how sometimes, your life is so perfect you’re afraid for the next moment, because it couldn’t possibly be quite as good? That’s what it felt like.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Life, Perfection

“This perplexing, good natured boy who can spin out lies so convincingly to be hopelessly in love with me… and I admit it there are moments when he makes me believe it myself.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Love, Boy, Nature

“I had rescued the moment by using my camera and in that way had found how to stop time and hold it. No one could take that image away from me because I owned it.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Way, Time

“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

Life, For Men

“Such is the life of a man. Moments of joy, obliterated by unforgettable sorrow.”

Marcel Pagnol (1895–1974) novelist, playwright and filmmaker from France

Life, Joy

“We're all under the same sky and walk the same earth; we're alive together during the same moment.”

Maxine Hong Kingston book The Woman Warrior

Source: The Woman Warrior

“Oh if life were made of moments
Even now and then a bad one--!
But if life were only moments,
Then you'd never know you had one.”

Stephen Sondheim (1930) American composer and lyricist

Source: Into the Woods

Life

“Moments into minutes. Minutes into hours. Hours into days. Days into years. Years into possibility. This will linger.”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

“I have a feeling that when I'm Stormy's age, these everyday moments will be what I remember: Peter's head bent, biting into a chocolate chip cookie; the sun coming through the cafeteria window, bouncing off his brown hair; him looking at me.”

Jenny Han book Always and Forever, Lara Jean

Source: Always and Forever, Lara Jean

Age, Feeling, Sun

“Besides," Shane said "I want to see Monica's face
when she catches sight of the two of you. Kodak moment.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Midnight Alley

“The moment of change is the only poem.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Change, Powerful

“It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Happiness, Study

“A woman of seven and twenty, said Marianne, after pausing a moment, can never hope to feel or inspire affection again.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

Hope, Feeling

“I don't expect life to make sense," he said after a few moments, "but it could certainly be pleasant if it would stop kicking us in the balls.”

Scott Lynch book The Republic of Thieves

Source: The Republic of Thieves (2013), Chapter 5 “The Five-Year Game: Starting Position” section 1 (p. 250)
Context: Locke put his head in his hands and sighed.
“I don’t expect life to make sense,” he said after a few moments, “but it would certainly be pleasant if it would stop kicking us in the balls.”

Life, Sense

“We have years to converse with someone, to blurt and rant, to explain our desires and anger and regrets - and oh how we squander those moments.”

Jeffery Deaver book The Bone Collector

Source: The Bone Collector

Anger

“There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Love, Time, Wise, Relationship

“It's of no use to look back and say, "I should have been different." At any given moment, we are the way we are, and we see what we're able to see. For that reason, guilt is always inappropriate.”

Charlotte Joko Beck (1917–2011) US American Zen Teacher

Source: Nothing Special

Way

“Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.”

Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986) lyricist and librettist from the United States

Source: Camelot: Vocal Selection

“I can detach myself from the world. If there is a better world to detach oneself from than the one functioning at the moment I have yet to hear of it.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

World

“the unexpected moment [is] always sweeter.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: The Viscount Who Loved Me

“There are moments in life when it is all turned inside out--what is real becomes unreal, what is unreal becomes tangible, and all your levelheaded efforts to keep a tight ontological control are rendered silly and indulgent.”

Aleksandar Hemon The Lazarus Project

Source: The Lazarus Project

Life, Effort

“I'm not myself," she offered, guiltily. She softened around Tik Tok, and when she did she was, for those rare moments, girlish.

He smiled. "You can never say that. You're just a piece of yourself right now that you don't like.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Smile

“In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Time, Past, Future, Weather

“This is one moment, / But know that another / Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy.”

T.S. Eliot Murder in the Cathedral

Source: Murder in the Cathedral

Pain, Joy

“I always think of each night as a song. Or each moment as a song. But now I'm seeing we don't live in a single song. We move from song to song, from lyric to lyric, from chord to chord. There is no ending here. It's an infinite playlist.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Thinking, Night

“How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Pleasure

“I've changed my ways a little, I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream, and you, if you dream a moment,
You see me there.”

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) American poet

Dreams, Way, Change

“You have ordinary moments and ordinary moments and more ordinary moments, and then, suddenly, there is something monumental right there. You have past and future colliding in the present, your own personal Big Bang, and nothing will ever be the same.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: Stay

Past, Future, Personality

“But we comforted ourselves with what we really meant to say, which was: "I don't normally feel this good about what I'm doing."
Measure the hope of that moment, that feeling.
Everything else will be measured against it.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Hope, Feeling

“In the middle of a crazy and drunk life, you have to hang onto the good and sober moments tightly.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Life

“The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Success, Success

“At moments when life is at its worst there are two things you can do:
1.) break down, lose hope and refuse to go on while lying face down on the ground banging your fists and kicking your legs, or 2.) laugh. Bobby and I did the latter.”

Cecelia Ahern book A Place Called Here

Variant: At moments when life is at its worst there are two things that you can
do: 1) break down, lose hope, and refuse to go on while lying facedown on the ground
banging your fists and kicking your legs, or 2) laugh.
Source: A Place Called Here

Life, Hope, Lying

“They belonged to each other totally, and always would, and that was that.
But maybe everyone felt that way? Until the moment they realized they were just like everyone else, and everything they'd thought was real shattered apart.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Way

“A sense of unspeakable security is in me this moment, on account of your having understood the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 1851); published in Memories of Hawthorne (1897) by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, p. 157
Context: In me divine magnanimities are spontaneous and instantaneous — catch them while you can. The world goes round, and the other side comes up. So now I can't write what I felt. But I felt pantheistic then—your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God's. A sense of unspeakable security is in me this moment, on account of your having understood the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the Gods in old Rome's Pantheon. It is a strange feeling — no hopelessness is in it, no despair. Content — that is it; and irresponsibility; but without licentious inclination. I speak now of my profoundest sense of being, not of an incidental feeling.

Books, Feeling, Sense

“When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 31
Context: I couldn't get myself to read the want ads. The thought of sitting in front of a man behind a desk and telling him that I wanted a job, that I was qualified for a job, was too much for me. Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.

World