Quotes about second
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“If loneliness was a choice, what was the other option? To settle for second-best and try to be happy with that? And was that fair to the person you settled for?”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Happiness, Personality, Loneliness

“I make it a policy not to second-guess my instincts. Life's more fun that way.
~Train Heartnet”

Kentaro Yabuki (1980) Japanese manga artist

Source: Black Cat, Volume 01

Life, Way, Training

“Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.”

Jonathan Haidt (1963) American psychologist

Source: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

“Having not said anything the first time, it was somehow even more difficult to broach the subject the second time around.”

Douglas Adams book So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Source: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Time

“…the brain can process two million bits of information per second. It remembers everything you've ever seen, everything you've ever heard…”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

“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

“I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. You’re all locked up in that little world of yours, and when I try knocking on the door, you just sort of look up for a second and go right back inside.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

World, Sadness, Madness

“Oh, Claire," he said. "You think me a far better man than I am. That's kind, and flattering."
"Are you saying that you -"

"Doughnuts!" Myrnin interrupted her and darted away, to zip back in seconds with an open box.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Ghost Town

Thinking, Box

“The first sip [of tea] is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums (1958)
Context: "Now you understand the Oriental passion for tea," said Japhy. "Remember that book I told you about; the first sip is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy."

Joy, Tea, Madness

“They'd been standing like that for thirty seconds of forever.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“The only difference between a wish and a prayer is that you're at the mercy of the universe for the first, and you've got some help with the second.”

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home

Source: Sing You Home

Universe, Help

“Akkarin: I watched the first woman I loved die. I dont think I can survive losing the second.
Sonea: I love you too.”

Trudi Canavan book The High Lord

Source: The High Lord

Love, Thinking

“You think this is going to work? This peaceful summit thing?”
“Sure,” I said. After a second, I added, “Probably.”
“Probably?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“We’re down to maybe now?”
I shrugged. “We’ll see.”

Jim Butcher book Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

Peace, Thinking

“We humans have two great problems: the first is knowing when to begin; the second is knowing when to stop.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Problem

“His whole body shakes with the strain as he tries to lift something he knows he can't lift, something everybody knows he can't lift.

But, for just a second, when we hear the cement grind at our feet, we think, by golly, he might do it.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Thinking

“Men exist because a vibrator can't fix a flat tire. On second thought, I should just buy a AAA card…”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Get A Clue

Men

“It was surprising that you could spend hours in the middle of the night pretending things were okay, and know in thirty seconds of daylight that simply wasn't so”

Gillian Flynn book Dark Places

Source: Dark Places

Night

“Time is a funny thing. I was always puzzled with the way a single day could stretch itself out to the point of eternity in your mind, all while years melted down into the fraction of a second.”

Gloria Naylor book Mama Day

Source: Mama Day

Way, Time

“I thought about how one tiny decision can change a life. A decision that takes only a split second to make.”

Anita Shreve (1946–2018) American writer

Source: Light on Snow

Life, Decision, Change

“Why bother? I was right all along: the second you make yourself vulnerable to someone, they start drawing blood.”

Poppy Z. Brite (1967) Novelist, short story writer, food writer

Drawing

“There's only one real sin, and that is to persuade oneself that the second-best is anything but the second-best.”

Doris Lessing book The Golden Notebook

Anna Wulf
The Golden Notebook (1962)

“Like a word on a page that you’ve printed and read a million times, that suddenly looks strange or wrong, foreign. And you feel scared for a second, like you’ve lost something, even if you’re not sure what it is.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Feeling, Time, Reading

“That was it. That was really it. She knew that she had told herself that that was it only seconds earlier, but this was now the final real ulimate it.”

Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Every good thing in the Christian life grows in the soil of humility. Without humility, every virtue and every grace withers. That’s why Calvin said humility is first, second, and third in the Christian faith.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

Life, Faith

“What?" He cut a grin at Kat when he saw the impressed look on her face. "Corporate espionage is my second greatest passion.'

"With your first being…" Kat prompted.

"Gelato," Hale said, and turned back to the group.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Perfect Scoundrels

Passion

“Half delirious, I slipped my hands around Whit's thick neck. The second Idid he got confident. His mouth moved over mine in a rough, unpracticed, awkward back-and-forth motion, so fast it was as if he was trying to create fire with our lips.”

Kieran Scott (1974) American writer

Source: Invitation Only

Confidence

“It took hours to turn the clock back 30 seconds.”

Jonathan Franzen book Strong Motion

Source: Strong Motion

“.

"Most times, when I'm having sex, I'd rather be reading."
This was, I admit, a strange thing to say on a second date.
I guess I was just giving you a warning.
"Most times when I'm reading," you said, "I'd rather be having sex".”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Sex, Time, Reading

“They both (Thalia and Hera) glared at her, and for three long seconds, Piper wasn’t sure which one of them was going to kill her first.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

“God will forgive me. It's his job." Heine said this on his deathbed (1856). Hilarious. He must have thought that up years before and counted the seconds to use it.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

God, Forgiveness

“The woman who creates and sustains a home, and under whose hands children grow up to be strong and pure men and women, is a creator second only to God.”

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–1885) Novelist, poet, writer, activist

Women, Men, God, Children

“Clarke's Second Law: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

"Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination" in Profiles of the Future (1962)
On Clarke's Laws

Law, Way, Past

“I will not waste time on second thoughts. My life will not be an apology. It will be a statement.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Source: The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success

Life, Time

“Anyone who believes that a second is faster than a decade did not live life.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Life

“The problem with every story is you tell it after the fact. Every play-by-play description on the radio, the home runs and strikeouts, even that's delayed a few minutes. Even live television is postponed a couple seconds. Even Sound and light can only go so fast.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 1

Home, Problem, Light

“because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Nobel lecture (8 December 1982) http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_nobel.html Variant: races condemned to 100 years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth. Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude Context: The most prosperous countries have succeeded in accumulating powers of destruction such as to annihilate, a hundred times over, not only all the human beings that have existed to this day, but also the totality of all living beings that have ever drawn breath on this planet of misfortune. On a day like today, my master William Faulkner said, "I decline to accept the end of man." I would fall unworthy of standing in this place that was his, if I were not fully aware that the colossal tragedy he refused to recognize thirty-two years ago is now, for the first time since the beginning of humanity, nothing more than a simple scientific possiblity. Faced with this awesome reality that must have seemed a mere utopia through all of human time, we, the inventors of tales, who will believe anything, feel entitled to believe that it is not yet too late to engage in the creation of the opposite utopia. A new and sweeping utopia of life, where no one will be able to decide for others how they die, where love will prove true and happiness be possible, and where the races condemned to one hundred years of solitude will have, at last and forever, a second opportunity on earth.

Solitude

“The weird, weird thing about devastating loss is that life actually goes on. When you're faced with a tragedy, a loss so huge that you have no idea how you can live through it, somehow, the world keeps turning, the seconds keep ticking.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Angel

Life, World, Idea, Loss

“I wrote somewhere once that the third-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking with the majority, the second-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking with the minority, and the first-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

War with Honour http://books.google.com/books?id=QmQDAAAAMAAJ&q=&quot;I+wrote+somewhere+once+that+the+third+rate+mind+was+only+happy+when+it+was+thinking+with+the+majority+the+second+rate+mind+was+only+happy+when+it+was+with+the+minority+and+a+first+rate+mind+was+only+happy+when+it+was+thinking&quot;, Macmillan War Pamphlets, Issue 2 (1940).

Happiness, Thinking

“… the second time you see something is really thetime. You need to know how it ends before you can appreciate how beautifully it's put together from the beginning.”

David Gilmour (1946) guitarist, singer, best known as a member of Pink Floyd

Source: The Film Club: A True Story of a Father and Son

Time

“So he's worth a second shot?

The more apt question, my dear, is: are you?”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Question

“Nico jumped into the crowd, kicking groins, smacking faces with the flat of his blade, bashing helmets with his pommel. In ten seconds, the Romans all lay groaning and dazed on the ground.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“There wasn't a second that passed when you weren't on my mind. You own me, Eva. Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, I belong to you.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Entwined with You

“One should make the best choice possible given the circumstances, and then avoid second-guessing for the sake of one's own sanity.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Again the Magic

“I have become convinced that God thoroughly enjoys fixing and saving things that are broken. That means that no matter how hurt and defeated you feel, no matter how badly you have been damaged, God can repair you. God can give anyone a second chance.”

Melody Carlson (1956) American writer

Source: Damaged: A Violated Trust

God, Feeling, Chance, Hurt

“No heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

God, Dreams, Search, Suffering

“I know you look both ways before you cross the street, but I want you to look both ways a second time, because I told you to.”

Jonathan Safran Foer (1977) Novelist

Way, Time

“I looked up to find a slim blond figure standing in the doorway to the kitchen. For a frozen second, I looked at him and he looked at me, and then I screamed and threw my coffee, which hit him square in the groin.”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Hunt the Moon

Coffee

“He rolled his eyes. "First, my Dad's Korean and my mom was Swedish. Second, I totally suck at math. I don't like cuckoo clocks or skiing or fancy chocolate either."
I sputtered a laugh. "I think that's Swiss.”

Kelley Armstrong book The Summoning

Source: The Summoning

Moms, Thinking

“What's with what you're wearing?" Griggs asks while we stand outside waiting for the others.
"It's pretty hideous, isn't it?" I say.
"Don't force me to look at it," he says. "It's see-through."

That kills conversation for a couple of seconds.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Waiting

“Amy hugged Sinead, and Dan scratched Saladin. "Later, Saladin. Take it easy on Kabra. On second thought, don't.”

Gordon Korman book The Medusa Plot

Source: The Medusa Plot

“Peter swept aside Yogi Tea and Harmony Herbal Blend, though he hesitated a second over the chamomile….. But no. Violent death demanded Earl Grey.”

Louise Penny book Still Life

Source: Still Life

Death, Tea

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book (Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death.”

Anaïs Nin book The Diary of Anaïs Nin

The Diary of Anaïs Nin , Volume One 1931-1934
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

Death, Children, Pleasure, Books

“True love would look a second time. True love would not be thwarted. True love would not accept no for an answer.”

Alex Flinn (1966) American children's writer

Love, Time

“Ayame: "Yuki, let's deepen the bond between us brothers!"
Yuki: "Before you can do that I'll drown you in the deepest part of that lake."
Ayame: "As long as we spend time together."
Yuki: "On second thought, go drown yourself.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Time, Parting

“Mahoney: "Thirty-seven seconds. Great, well done; now we wait."

Mr. Magorium: "No, we breathe, we pulse, we regenerate. our hearts beat, our minds create, our souls ingest. Thirty-seven seconds well used is a lifetime.”

Suzanne Weyn book Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Source: Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Soul, Waiting, Heart

“Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one a second time.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

H. W. Shaw (Josh Billings), as quoted in Scientific American, Vol. 31 (1874), p. 121, and in dictionaries of quotations such as Excellent Quotations for Home and School (1890) by Julia B. Hoitt, p. 117 https://archive.org/stream/excellentquotat00hoitgoog/excellentquotat00hoitgoog#page/n138/mode/1up and Many Thoughts of Many Minds: A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age (1896) by Louis Klopsch, p. 266 https://archive.org/stream/manythoughtsman00klopgoog/manythoughtsman00klopgoog#page/n268/mode/1up. Misattributed

Time, Success

“Sometimes the course of our lives depends on what we do or don't do in a few seconds, a heartbeat, when we either seize the opportunity, or just miss it. Miss the moment and you never get a chance again.”

Aidan Chambers (1934) British children's writer

Source: Dying to Know You

Chance, Dependency

“Listen to your second thought, or the third might be too late.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Source: Palace of Stone

“and she had succeeded, on the second try, in hurling herself out of the world.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

World

“Can I see you outside for a second?" Kat glared at Hale, then walked to the patio doors and out onto the veranda.
As Hale closed the door behind him, Kat heard Angus say, "Ooh, Mom and Dad are going to fight now.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

Moms, Fight

“I unfolded the note, and it took me a few seconds to decipher Adrian’s writing. If he did write me a dating proposal, I really hoped he would type it.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Hope

“You tried to drink the East River,"Magnus said, and Alec saw, as if for the first time, that Magnus's clothes were soaking wet too, sticking to his body like a dark second skin.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Drink, Time, Clothes

“I don't need my head examined, but where were you when I married my second husband. Sheesh.”

Lisa Scottoline (1955) American writer

Source: Every Fifteen Minutes

“But grace can be the experience of a second wind, when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on.”

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

Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

“Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Understanding, Knowledge, Learning, Memory

“Live for each second without hesitation”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Motivational, Deep, Happy, Inspirational

“By then she was dead. In fact, she may have been dead a while ago. Physically, several seconds ago, mentally, ages ago.”

Koushun Takami book Battle Royale

Source: Battle Royale

Age, Dead

“Long since, the desert wind wiped away our footprints in the sand. But at every second of my existence, I remember what happened, and you still walk in my dreams and in my reality. Thank you for having crossed my path.”

Paulo Coelho book The Fifth Mountain

Source: The Fifth Mountain

Dreams, Reality

“I wonder if what makes a family a family isn't doing everything right all the time but, instead, giving a second chance to the people you love who do things wrong.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

Love, People, Family, Chance

“Wizard's Second Rule
The greatest harm can result from the best intentions.”

Terry Goodkind book Stone of Tears

Source: Stone of Tears

“I can remember my first one-night stand like it was yesterday. Well, maybe not the first. Or the second… or the fifth. I'll just begin with what I can remember and not concern myself with order.”

Chelsea Handler (1975) American comedian, actress, author and talk show host

Night

“When you go to a country, you must learn how to say two things: how to ask for food, and to tell a woman that you love her. Of these the second is more important, for if you tell a woman you love her, she will certainly feed you.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Love, Food, Learning, Country

“Sometimes something catastrophic can occur in a split second that changes a person's life forever; other times one minor incident can lead to another and then another and another, eventually setting off just as big a change in a body's life.”

Jeannette Walls book Half Broke Horses

Source: Half Broke Horses

Life, Change, Time, Personality

“Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes all the pressure off the second.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Letter to Sydney Cox (3 January 1937), quoted in Robert Frost : The Trial By Existence (1960) by Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, p. 351, and Robert Frost and Sidney Cox: Forty Years of Friendship (1981) by William Richard Evans, p. 223
General sources
Context: Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes all the pressure off the second. My mouth is sealed for the duration of my stay here. I'm not even going to write letters around to explain to collectors my not having had any Christmas card this year. I'm not going to explain anything personal any more.

Housing