Quotes about slip (414 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“She was a wild, wicked slip of a girl. She burned too brightly for this world.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Variant: She burned too bright for this world.
Source: The quote is attributed to Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, but only first part appears in book. https://books.google.pl/books?id=Aiye9MLNh9EC&q=wild%2C+wicked+slip#v=snippet&q=wild%2C%20wicked%20slip&f=false

World , Girl

“And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

Life , Grass , Night

“I hate speaking in front of a large audience. I don't know where it came from…but its just this gut-wrenching fear of slipping up and doing something horrible.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

Hate , Fear

“Sometimes you seem to slip
and
don't know know what to do.
What a life…
what a life.
I keep holding on.
The heavier the load
the harder I fight.
No one
will
keep me down.
I keep holding on.
I keep holding on.
Until God decides.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

God , Fight , Life

“It is easy to love people when they smell good, but sometimes they slip into the manure of life and smell awful. You must love them just as much when they smell foul.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Love , Life , People

“Have this faith that someone is there to take away your weaknesses. Ok, you slipped once, twice, thrice. It does not matter. Keep moving ahead. People take vows never to commit mistakes again. Breaking the vows makes it worse. Surrendering is better”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

People , Faith

“Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Poem, "Liberty's old story" in Pansies (Third typing, ribbon copy - 231 poems, c. 11-28 February 1929)

Fight , Men , Fools , Children

“Of all the fathers, as many as you can name, not one has ever spoken about the sacrament as these fanatics do. None of them uses such an expression as, 'It is simply bread and wine,' or, 'Christ’s body and blood are not present.' Yet since this subject is so frequently discussed by them, it is impossible that they should not at some time have let slip such an expression as, 'It is simply bread,' or, 'Not that the body of Christ is physically present,' or the like, since they are greatly concerned not to mislead the people; actually, they simply proceed to speak as if no one doubted that Christ’s body and blood are present. Certainly among so many fathers and so many writings a negative argument should have turned up at least once, as happens in other articles; but actually they all stand uniformly and consistently on the affirmative side.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

That These Words of Christ, 'This is My Body' Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, 1527, in Luther's Works, Word and Sacrament III, 1961, Fortress Press, , volume 37, p. 54. http://books.google.com/books?ei=PxdBTeK6F4PogQe9lKizAw&ct=result&id=J-0RAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Nicodemus%2C+joseph%2C+Paul%22&q=%22Still+Stand+Firm+Against+the+Fanatics%22#search_anchor This work appeared in vol. 2 of the Wittenberg ed. of Luther's Works (in German) and was later translated into Latin by Matthew Judex (Matthaeum Iudicem) under the title: Defensio τοῦ ρητοῦ Verborum Cenae: Accipite, Comedite: Hoc est Corpus Meum: Contra Phanaticos Sacramentariorum Spiritus. http://solomon.tcpt.alexanderstreet.com/cgi-bin/asp/philo/cpt/getobject.pl?c.121:1.cpt
Luther's Latin: “Nullus ex patribus, quorum infinitus est numerus, de Sacramento sic loquutus est, ut Sacramentarii. Nam nemo ex iis talibus verbis utitur Tantum panis & vinum est: Vel Corpus & Sanguis Christi non adestProfecto non est credibile, nec possibile cum toties ab iis res ista agatur & repetatur, quod non aliquando, vel semel tantum excidissent haec verba. Est merus Panis, aut, non quod Christi corpus corporaliter adsit, aut his similia, cum tamen multum referat ne homines seducantur, Sed omnes praecise ita loquuntur, quasi nullus dubitet, quin ibi praesto sit corpus & sanguis Christi. Sane ex tot patribus, & tot scriptis, ab aliquibus, vel saltem ab uno potuisset negativa sententia proferri, ut in aliis articulis usitatum & frequens est, si non sensissent, corpus & sanguinem Christi vere inesse. Verum omnes concordes & constantes uno ore affirmatium proferunt.” See Luther's Opera Omnia, Wittenberg ed., (1558), vol., 7, p. 391. http://books.google.com/books?id=jrpjO-K_kQYC&pg=PR10&dq=Accipitae+Hoc+%22corpus+meum%22+luther&hl=en&ei=9iFBTeOqIonbgQeJ4IXmAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=coenae&f=false

People , Wine , Time , Christ

“Gordon put his hand against the swing door. He even pushed it open a few inches. The warm fog of smoke and beer slipped through the crack. A familiar, reviving smell; nevertheless as he smelled it his nerve failed him. No! Impossible to go in. He turned away. He couldn't go shoving into that saloon bar with only fourpence halfpenny in his pocket. Never let other people buy your drinks for you! The first commandment of the moneyless. He made off down the dark pavement.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 4

People , Drink , Beer

“Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it, or just let it slip?”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Lose Yourself".
2000s, 8 Mile (2002)

“I opened the door and blinked out into the bright hall. I had the impression it wasn't night and it wasn't day, but some lurid third interval that had suddenly slipped between them and would never end.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Night

“Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Source: Julius Caesar

War , Dogs , Cry

“Sit by my side, and let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger.”

William Shakespeare The Taming of the Shrew

Source: The Taming of the Shrew

World

“It occurred to me that I was unhappy. And it didn’t feel so very terrible. No urgency, nothing. I could slip out of my life on a slow wave like this—it didn’t matter. I don’t have to be happy. All I have to do is hold on to something and wait.”

Helen Oyeyemi (1984) British author

Source: Mr. Fox

Life , Feeling , Waiting , Happiness

“Thanking people is dangerous business. A name always slips your mind.”

John Wayne (1907–1979) American film actor

People , Business

“In secret pleasure — secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

I Am the Only Being (1836)
Source: Wuthering Heights
Context: I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask no eye would mourn
I never caused a thought of gloom
A smile of joy since I was born
In secret pleasure — secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away
As friendless after eighteen years
As lone as on my natal day

Life , Pleasure , Secret , Tear

“The world going insane and evil letting slip the birds of war is no excuse for sloppy vocabulary.”

P. C. Cast book Hunted

Source: Hunted

War , World , Bird , Evil

“Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Nature , Freedom

“If you don't want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Truth

“The words in this book are all phooey. When you say them, your lips will make slips and back flips and your tongue may end up in Saint Looey!”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Books

“All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.”

Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer

“He says every man is a moon and has a side which he turns toward nobody: you have to slip around behind if you want to see it.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

The Refuge of the Derelicts (unpublished manuscript written 1905–1906)
Source: Google Books link https://books.google.com/books?id=uLfR7-ETm0MC&pg=PA326&dq=%22every+man+is+a+moon%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIn_iGm83gyAIVTedjCh0LwAap#v=onepage&q&f=false

“Slipping? We're bigger than Jesus.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

“I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot;
Follow your spirit: and upon this charge,
Cry — God for Harry! England and Saint George!”

William Shakespeare Henry V

Source: Henry V

God , Game , Cry

“A bibliophile of little means is likely to suffer often. Books don't slip from his hands but fly past him through the air, high as birds, high as prices.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Books , Bird , Suffering , Past

“Not all Freudian slips are created equal.”

Rachel Maddow (1973) American journalist

The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, March 2009 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29773694/18

“In between these four whitewashed walls, on this tiled floor, notice the broken corners, how some tiles have been worn smooth, how many feet have passed this way, and look how interesting this trail of ants is, travelling along the joins as if they were valleys, while up above, projected against the white sky of the ceiling and the sun of the lamp, tall towers are moving, they are men, as the ants well know, having, for generations, experienced the weight of their feet and the long, hot spout of water that falls from a kind of pendulous external intestine, ants all over the world have been drowned or crushed by these, but it seems they will escape this fate now, for the men are occupied with other things. […]
Let's take this ant, or, rather, let's not, because that would involve picking it up, let us merely consider it, because it is one of the larger ones and because it raises its head like a dog, it's walking along very close to the wall, together with its fellow ants it will have time to complete its long journey ten times over between the ants' nest and whatever it is that it finds so interesting, curious or perhaps merely nourishing in this secret room […]. One of the men has fallen to the ground, he's on the same level as the ants now, we don't know if he can see them, but they see him, and he will fall so often that, in the end, they will know by heart his face, the color of his hair and eyes, the shape of his ear, the dark arc of his eyebrow, the faint shadow at the corner of his mouth, and later, back in the ants' nest, they will weave long stories for the enlightenment of future generations, because it is useful for the young to know what happens out there in the world. The man fell and the others dragged him to his feet again, shouting at him, asking two different questions at the same time, how could he possibly answer them even if he wanted to, which is not the case, because the man who fell and was dragged to his feet will die without saying a word. Only moans will issue from his mouth, and in the silence of his soul only deep sighs, and even when his teeth are broken and he has to spit them out, which will prompt the other two men to hit him again for soiling state property, even then the sound will be of spitting and nothing more, that unconscious reflex of the lips, and then the dribble of saliva thickened with blood that falls to the floor, thus stimulating the taste buds of the ants, who telegraph from one to the other news of this singularly red manna fallen from such a white heaven.
The man fell again. It's the same one, said the ants, the same ear shape, the same arc of eyebrow, the same shadow at the corner of the mouth, there's no mistaking him, why is it that it is always the same man who falls, why doesn't he defend himself, fight back. […] The ants are surprised, but only fleetingly. After all, they have their own duties, their own timetables to keep, it is quite enough that they raise their heads like dogs and fix their feeble vision on the fallen man to check that he is the same one and not some new variant in the story. The larger ant walked along the remaining stretch of wall, slipped under the door, and some time will pass before it reappears to find everything changed, well, that's just a manner of speaking, there are still three men there, but the two who do not fall never stop moving, it must be some kind of game, there's no other explanation […]. [T]hey grab him by the shoulders and propel him willy-nilly in the direction of the wall, so that sometimes he hits his back, sometimes his head, or else his poor bruised face smashes into the whitewash and leaves on it a trace of blood, not a lot, just whatever spurts forth from his mouth and right eyebrow. And if they leave him there, he, not his blood, slides down the wall and he ends up kneeling on the ground, beside the little trail of ants, who are startled by the sudden fall from on high of that great mass, which doesn't, in the end, even graze them. And when he stays there for some time, one ant attaches itself to his clothing, wanting to take a closer look, the fool, it will be the first ant to die, because the next blow falls on precisely that spot, the ant doesn't feel the second blow, but the man does.”

José Saramago book Raised from the Ground

Source: Raised from the Ground (1980), pp. 172–174

Men , Fate , Secret , World

“Look
If you had
one shot
to sit on your lazy butt
and watch all the TV you ever wanted
until your brain turned to mush
Would you go for it?
or just let it slip?
Yo”

"Weird Al" Yankovic (1959) American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist

"Couch Potato", Poodle Hat.
Song lyrics

“The three military arts. First - Apprehension, how to arrange things in camp, how to march, how to attack, pursue, and strike; for taking up position, final judgement of the enemy's strength, for estimating his intentions. Second - Quickness… This quickness doesn't weary the men. The enemy doesn't expect us, reckons us 100 versts away, and if a long way off to begin with - 200, 300 or more - suddenly we're on him, like snow on the head; his head spins. Attack with what comes up, with what God sends; the cavalry to begin, smash, strike, cut off, don't let slip, hurra! Brothers do miracles! Third - Attack. Leg supports leg. Arm strengthens arm; many men will die in the volley; the enemy has the same weapons, but he doesn't know the Russian bayonet. Extend the line - attack at once with cold steel; extend the line without stopping… the Cossacks to get through everywhere… In two lines is strength; in three, half as much again; the first breaks, the second drives into heaps, the third overthrows.”

Alexander Suvorov (1730–1800) Russian military commander

From "The Science of Victory," 1796.

Men , God , Art , Way

“This difficult living, heavy and as if all tied up,
moving through that which has been left undone,
is like the not-quite-finished walk of the swan.And dying, this slipping away from
the ground upon which we stand every day,
is his anxious letting himself fall—:into the waters, which receive him gladly
and which, as if happily already gone by,
draw back under him, wave after wave;
while the swan, infinitely calm and self-assured,
opener and more magnificent
and more serene, allows himself to be drawn on.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book New Poems

Diese Mühsal, durch noch Ungetanes
schwer und wie gebunden hinzugehen,
gleicht dem ungeschaffnen Gang des Schwanes.Und das Sterben, dieses Nichtmehrfassen
jenes Grunds, auf dem wir täglich stehen,
seinem ängstlichen Sich-Niederlassen—:in die Wasser, die ihn sanft empfangen
und die sich, wie glücklich und vergangen,
unter ihm zurückziehn, Flut um Flut;
während er unendlich still und sicher
immer mündiger und königlicher
und gelassener zu ziehn geruht.
Der Schwan (The Swan) (as translated by Cliff Crego)
Neue Gedichte (New Poems) (1907)

Water , Drawing

“We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them — this morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved good-bye, and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Speech about the Space Shuttle disaster http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/12886b.htm(28 January 1986)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)

God , Time , Forgetting

“The erotic instinct is something questionable, and will always be so whatever a future set of laws may have to say on the matter. It belongs, on the one hand, to the original animal nature of man, which will exist as long as man has an animal body. On the other hand, it is connected with the highest forms of the spirit. But it blooms only when the spirit and instinct are in true harmony. If one or the other aspect is missing, then an injury occurs, or at least there is a one-sided lack of balance which easily slips into the pathological. Too much of the animal disfigures the civilized human being, too much culture makes a sick animal.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

The Psychology of the Unconscious (1943)

Law , Question , Nature , Future

“I suspect that those of you who pursue more education, or climb the corporate ladder, or enter the arts or sciences or journalism, will still choose a cause you care about in your life and fight like heck to make it happen.
There is a word for this. It’s citizenship. We don’t always talk about this idea much these days, let alone celebrate it. Sometimes, we see it as a virtue from another time – one that’s slipping from a society that celebrates individual ambition; a society awash in instant technology that empowers us to leverage our skills and talents like never before, but just as easily allows us to retreat from the world. And the result is that we sometimes forget the larger bonds we share, as one American family.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Commencement Address at Ohio State University (May 2013)

Life , World , Education , Family

“I am returning this MBE in protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against "Cold Turkey" slipping down the charts.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Letter to Queen Elizabeth II sent in 1969 with his MBE, explaining why he was returning it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-37787297

Support

“As for the soul: why did I say I would leave it out? I forget. And the truth is, one can't write directly about the soul. Looked at, it vanishes; but look at the ceiling, at Grizzle, at the cheaper beasts in the Zoo which are exposed to walkers in Regent's Pak, and the soul slips in. Mrs Webb's book has made me think a little what I could say of my own life. But then there were causes in her life: prayer; principle. None in mine. Great excitability and search after something. Great content – almost always enjoying what I'm at, but with constant change of mood. I don't think I'm ever bored. Yet I have some restless searcher in me. Why is there not a discovery in life? Something one can lay hands on and say 'This is it'? What is it? And shall I die before I can find it? Then (as I was walking through Russell Square last night) I see mountains in the sky: the great clouds, and the moon which is risen over Persia; I have a great and astonishing sense of something there, which is 'it' – A sense of my own strangeness, walking on the earth is there too. Who am I, what am I, and so on; these questions are always floating about in me. Is that what I meant to say? Not in the least. I was thinking about my own character; not about the universe. Oh and about society again; dining with Lord Berners at Clive's made me think that. How, at a certain moment, I see through what I'm saying; detest myself; and wish for the other side of the moon; reading alone, that is.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Saturday 27 February 1926
A Moment's Liberty (1990)

Life , Truth , Books , Soul

“None of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations overnight. Every time something like this happens, somebody says we have to have a conversation about race. We talk a lot about race. There’s no shortcut. And we don’t need more talk. None of us should believe that a handful of gun safety measures will prevent every tragedy. It will not. People of goodwill will continue to debate the merits of various policies, as our democracy requires -- this is a big, raucous place, America is. And there are good people on both sides of these debates. Whatever solutions we find will necessarily be incomplete. But it would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again. Once the eulogies have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on, to go back to business as usual -- that’s what we so often do to avoid uncomfortable truths about the prejudice that still infects our society. To settle for symbolic gestures without following up with the hard work of more lasting change -- that’s how we lose our way again. It would be a refutation of the forgiveness expressed by those families if we merely slipped into old habits, whereby those who disagree with us are not merely wrong but bad; where we shout instead of listen; where we barricade ourselves behind preconceived notions or well-practiced cynicism.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)

People , Truth , Family , Way

“And over the village slipped the days, passing into the nights; the weeks flowed by, the months crept on, the wind howled, and, glassified with an autumnal, translucent, greenish-azure, the Don flowed tranquilly down to the sea.”

Mikhail Sholokhov book And Quiet Flows the Don

And Quiet Flows the Don (1934)

Autumn , Sea , Night

“Death is a bend in the road,
To die is to slip out of view.
If I listen, I hear your steps
Existing as I exist.

The earth is made of heaven.
Error has no nest.
No one has ever been lost.
All is truth and way.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

A morte é a curva da estrada,
Morrer é só não ser visto.
Se escuto, eu te oiço a passada
Existir como eu existo.A terra é feita de céu.
A mentira não tem ninho.
Nunca ninguém se perdeu.
Tudo é verdade e caminho.
"A morte é a curva da estrada" (23 May 1932), in A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe, trans. Richard Zenith (Penguin, 2006)

Death , Truth , Way , Error

“Lines slip easily down the accustomed grooves. The old designs are copied so glibly that we are half inclined to think them original, save for that very glibness.”

Virginia Woolf A Letter to a Young Poet

"A Letter to a Young Poet"
The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (1942)

Thinking

“State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people’.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Thus Spoke Zarathustra; A Book for All and None, trans. Kaufmann, New York: NY, Modern Library (1995) p. 48, 1.11: “On the New Idol”

People , Lie

“I've seen how a spirit of unity, born of tragedy, can gradually dissipate, overtaken by the return to business as usual, by inertia and old habits and expediency. I see how easily we slip back into our old notions, because they’re comfortable, we’re used to them. I’ve seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Memorial Service for Fallen Dallas Police Officers (July 2016)
Context: I've seen how a spirit of unity, born of tragedy, can gradually dissipate, overtaken by the return to business as usual, by inertia and old habits and expediency. I see how easily we slip back into our old notions, because they’re comfortable, we’re used to them. I’ve seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change. I’ve seen how inadequate my own words have been. And so I’m reminded of a passage in *John’s Gospel [First John]: Let us love not with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. If we’re to sustain the unity we need to get through these difficult times, if we are to honor these five outstanding officers who we’ve lost, then we will need to act on the truths that we know. And that’s not easy. It makes us uncomfortable. But we’re going to have to be honest with each other and ourselves.

Business , Change

“As a people we must be united. If we are not united we shall slip into the gulf of measureless disaster. We must be strong in purpose for our own defense and bent on securing justice within our borders. If as a nation we are split into warring camps, if we teach our citizens not to look upon one another as brothers but as enemies divided by the hatred of creed for creed or of those of one race against those of another race, surely we shall fail and our great democratic experiment on this continent will go down in crushing overthrow.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: Even in the matter of national defense there is such a labyrinth of committees and counsels and advisors that there is a tendency on the part of the average citizen to become confused and do nothing. I ask you to help strike the note that shall unite our people. As a people we must be united. If we are not united we shall slip into the gulf of measureless disaster. We must be strong in purpose for our own defense and bent on securing justice within our borders. If as a nation we are split into warring camps, if we teach our citizens not to look upon one another as brothers but as enemies divided by the hatred of creed for creed or of those of one race against those of another race, surely we shall fail and our great democratic experiment on this continent will go down in crushing overthrow. I ask you here tonight and those like you to take a foremost part in the movement a young men's movement for a greater and better America in the future.

War , People , Justice , Strong

“Our own power of generation lies in the rebirth of what has been handed down to us. If we do not wish to slip back, nothing must be forgotten; but if philosophising is to be genuine our thoughts must arise from our own source. Hence all appropriation of tradition proceeds from the intentness of our own life. The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the glow of its life.”

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher

On My Philosopy (1941)
Context: Our questions and answers are in part determined by the historical tradition in which we find ourselves. We apprehend truth from our own source within the historical tradition.
The content of our truth depends upon our appropriating the historical foundation. Our own power of generation lies in the rebirth of what has been handed down to us. If we do not wish to slip back, nothing must be forgotten; but if philosophising is to be genuine our thoughts must arise from our own source. Hence all appropriation of tradition proceeds from the intentness of our own life. The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the glow of its life.

Life , Feeling , Time , Past

“It is as though something had begun to slip – as though I haven’t the firm grip I had on events.”

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate

What is success? It is an inner, an indescribable force, resourcefulness, power of vision; a consciousness that I am, by my mere existence, exerting pressure on the movement of life about me. It is my belief in the adaptability of life to my own ends. Fortune and success lie within ourselves. We must hold them firmly – deep within us. For as soon as something begins to slip, to relax, to get tired, within us, then everything without us will rebel and struggle to withdraw from our influence. One thing follows another, blow after blow – and the man is finished.
Buddenbrooks [Buddenbrooks: Verfall einer Familie, Roman] (1901). Pt 7, Ch. 6

“Looking back, it's like, wow, those few minutes just made such an impact. We have that much time to kind of prove yourself. I think that's one thing that makes skating so exciting, because it's just intense, and it's quick, and one little slip can mean the difference between placing or not placing.”

Kristi Yamaguchi (1971) American figure skater

"Kristi Yamaguchi looks back on 1992 Olympic gold, talks Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan" in TODAY https://www.today.com/news/kristi-yamaguchi-looks-back-1992-olympic-gold-talks-tonya-harding-t122373 (6 February 2018)

Time , Thinking

“I knew the moment I saw you that I loved you.

It hit me hard…although I hardly knew you,

I felt the presence of something unique and special.

My hearts cries because I know you don't feel the same way.

Wake up!

See me.

Know me.

Love me.

Don't be stupid and allow me to slip away…

like the sands of time.

When you realize what I have…

you will know Love for the 1st time in your Life!”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Way , Stupidity , Time , Heart

“But in high school the business of irrevocable choices began. Doors slipped shut with a faint locking click that was only heared clearly in the dreams of later years.”

Stephen King book Cujo

Source: Cujo

School , Dreams , Business

“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies

World , Law , Understanding

“Underneath me, Sam Grest - who'd been my friend and saved my life - lay perfectly still and slipped further and further into the final sleep of an unfair and horrible death.”

Darren Shan book The Vampire's Assistant

Source: The Vampire's Assistant

Life , Death , Sleep

“By the time I was fourteen the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Support , Time

“And always, I could see that, despite his weakness for her or because of it, he seemed uncatchable, as if he might slip away at any moment.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

“One word can give someone the strengththey needed at the moment or it can shred them down to nothing. A single smile can turn a bad moment good. And one wrong outburstcould be that tiny push that causes someone to slip over the edge of destruction.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infamous

Smile

“The instant he knew he loved her, she slipped down his body and out of his arms.”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

Love

“Words should wander and meander. They should fly like owls and flicker like bats and slip like cats. They should murmur and scream and dance and sing.”

David Almond book My Name Is Mina

Source: My Name Is Mina

Cats , Singing , Dance , Flying

“… to slip beneath the surface and soar along the silent bottom of the sea agile and shining in water honeycombed with light.”

Ellen Meloy (1946–2004) American writer

Light , Water , Sea

“Thus they went on living in a reality that was slipping away, momentarily captured by words, but which would escape irremediably when they forgot the values of the written letters.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Reality

“And so castles made of sand slips into the sea, eventually..”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

Castles Made Of Sand
Song lyrics, Axis: Bold as Love (1967)
Variant: Castles made of sand, fall in the sea, eventually

Sea

“… it's as empty as a merchant's soul. Sorry, Kheldar, it's just an old expression."
"That's all right, Beldin," Silk forgave him grandly. "These little slips of the tongue are common in the very elderly.”

David Eddings (1931–2009) American novelist

Source: Sorceress of Darshiva

Soul

“It's funny, when you're a child you think time will never go by, but when you hit about twenty, time passes like you're on the fast train to Memphis. I guess life just slips up on everybody. It sure did on me.”

Fannie Flagg book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Source: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Life , Thinking , Time , Training

“You know, the condom is the glass slipper of our generation. You slip it on when you meet a stranger. You dance all night, then you throw it away.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Dance , Night

“i want to give up my bearings, slip out of who i am, shed everything, the way a snake discards old skin.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Way

“A guy in Greek armor drew his sword and charged, but slipped in a puddle of pina colada.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Guy

“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

“Jewels, lies, slips of paper, dried flowers, memories of thing long past, useless quotations, idle hands, beads, buttons, and mischief.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Flowers , Memory , Past

“Have you tried to talk to her?"
"What would you like me to say Bastian? OH, I'M SORRY, INEZ. I DIDN'T MEAN TO BITE YOU, MY FANGS SLIPPED.”

Lynsay Sands Canadian writer

Source: Vampires are Forever

“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

“Do you wrestle with dreams?
Do you contend with shadows?
Do you move in a kind of sleep?
Time has slipped away.
Your life is stolen.
You tarried with trifles,
Victim of your folly.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Life , Dreams , Sleep , Time

“Everyone's life is a mess. We all make mistakes… and not just little slip-ups. Major mistakes that hurt us and other people.”

James Alan Gardner Trapped

Source: Trapped

Life , People , Hurt

“I can see the beauty of glass objects fully at the moment when they slip from my hand”

Andrew Solomon book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Beauty

“What are other women really thinking, feeling, experiencing, when they slip away from the gaze and culture of men?”

Naomi Wolf book The Beauty Myth

Source: The Beauty Myth

Women , Men , Feeling , Thinking

“The flames surround me, and I feel myself slipping further from life, thinning to only the faintest shiver in the air. I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Life , Feeling , Silence

“Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.”

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

“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Soul , Reading

“People say that time slips through our fingers like sand. What they don't acknowledge is that some of the sand sticks to the skin. These are memories that will remain, memories of the time when there was still time left.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Invisibility

People , Memory , Time

“How is it right to slip free of an old skin and walk away from the scene of the crime? We came, we saw, we took away and we left behind, we must be allowed our anguish and our regrets.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

“The tenderness between two people can turn the air tender, the room tender, time itself tender. As I step out of bed and slip on an oversize shirt, everything around me feels like it's the temperature of happiness.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

People , Feeling , Time , Happiness

“But Piglet is so small that he slips into a pocket, where it is very comfortable to feel him when you are not quite sure whether twice seven is twelve or twenty-two.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

Feeling

“One slip. One slip in thousands. The odds had been entirely in her favor. But it hadn't mattered.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“Did you just kiss me?" Will inquired.
Magnus made a slip-second decision. "No."
"I thought-"
"On occasion the aftereffects of the painkilling spells can result in hallucinations of the most bizarre sort."
"Oh," Will said. "How peculiar.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Kiss , Decision

“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner (2003)

Pain , Forgiveness , Night

“Come a day there won’t be room for naughty men like us to slip about at all. This job goes south, there well may not be another. So here is us, on the raggedy edge. Don’t push me, and I won’t push you. Dong le ma?”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

Men

“But maybe you never really had someone, she thought now. Maybe, no matter how much you loved them, they could slip through your fingers like water, and there was nothing you could do about it.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Love , Water

“but it's not safe and I can feel him slipping away, so I just get out one more sentence. "Stay with me."
As the tendrils of sleep syrup pull me down, I hear him whisper a word back but I don't catch it.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Feeling , Sleep

“For years now, I've wanted to fall asleep. The sort of slipping off, the giving up, the falling part of sleep. Now sleeping is the last thing I want to do.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Sleep , Parting

“Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you, smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, "Come and find out".”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Smile , Thinking

“One of the Georges - I forget which - once said that a certain number of hours' sleep each night - I cannot recall at the moment how many - made a man something which for the time being has slipped my memory.”

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

Source: Mike and Psmith

Sleep , Memory , Time , Night

“They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

Wedding

“What is the soul? What color is it? I suspected my soul, being mischievous, might slip away while I was dreaming and fail to return. I did my best not to fall asleep, to keep it inside of me where it belonged.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

Dreams , Color , Soul

“because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie.”

Alan Paton book Cry, the Beloved Country

Source: Cry, the Beloved Country

Life , Lie , Star , Falseness

“And enough for me that when my hand touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me slip away, you called my name.”

Orson Scott Card book Children of the Mind

Source: Children of the Mind

“I was slipping, man, and it was definetly time to get a grip.”

Wendelin Van Draanen Flipped

Source: Flipped

Time

“Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing-glove.”

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

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)
Source: Very Good, Jeeves!

Fate , Box

“Reality is, you know, the tip of an iceberg of irrationality that we've managed to drag ourselves up onto for a few panting moments before we slip back into the sea of the unreal.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Variant: Reality is, you know, the tip of an iceberg of irrationality that we've managed to drag ourselves up onto for a few panting moments before we slip back into the sea of the unreal.

Reality , Sea