Quotes about timing
page 38

“I don’t want to know what time it is. I don’t want to know what day it is or where I am. None of that matters.”

Source: Into the Wild

“It was so risky and so scary, and yet at the same time, so beautiful. Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Truth, Beauty, Time, Fight

“Time has no meaning,
Love will endure..”

Jude Deveraux (1947) American writer

Love, Time

“In another time and place, she might have felt differently, but thinking along those lines was pointless now.”

Nicholas Sparks book True Believer

Source: True Believer

Thinking, Time

“The dull people decided years and years ago, as everyone knows, that novel-writing was the lowest species of literary exertion, and that novel reading was a dangerous luxury and an utter waste of time.”

Wilkie Collins (1824–1889) British writer

Source: My Miscellanies

People, Time, Reading

“I was twenty then. What the hell, I used to say, take your time, Bandini. You got ten years to write a book, so take it easy, get out and learn about life, walk the streets. That’s your trouble: your ignorance of life.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Source: Ask the Dust

Life, Books, Hell, Learning

“Talking to you is like -- like talking to an eel!"

"No, is it? I've never tried to talk to an eel. Isn't it as waste of time?"

"Not such a waste of time as talking to you!”

Georgette Heyer book Black Sheep

Source: Black Sheep

Time

“It is a time of change,'' Sazed said. ''Perhaps it is also time to learn of other truths, other ways.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

Truth, Way, Learning, Change

“During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.”

Howard Thurman (1899–1981) American writer

War, Time

“He was well aware that of the two of three thousand times he had made love (how many times had he made love in his life?) only two or three were really essential and unforgettable. The rest were mere echoes, imitations, repetitions, or reminiscences.”

Milan Kundera book The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Source: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Love, Life, Time

“It was a kiss made in lonely dreams. A kiss that took its time. A kiss that felt so right she couldn't remember all the reasons it was wrong.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: This Heart of Mine

Dreams, Kiss, Time

“I was in my bed trying to figure out why sometimes you can wake up and go back to sleep and other times you can't”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Sleep, Time

“Don’t waste time waiting for inspiration. Begin, and inspiration will find you.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Time, Waiting

“Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding.”

Milan Kundera book The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Part Four: Lost Letters (p. 106)
Source: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979)
Context: The proliferation of mass graphomania among politicians, cab drivers, women on the delivery table, mistresses, murderers, criminals, prostitutes, police chiefs, doctors, and patients proves to me that every individual without exception bears a potential writer within himself and that all mankind has every right to rush out into the streets with a cry of "We are all writers!"
The reason is that everyone has trouble accepting the fact that he will disappear unheard of and unnoticed in an indifferent universe, and everyone wants to make himself into a universe of words before it's too late.
Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding.

Life, Age, Understanding, Universe

“There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: On Love

Loss, Time

“Between hell now, and hell later, Sassenach," he said, his speech measured and precise, "I will take later, every time.”

Diana Gabaldon book Dragonfly in Amber

Source: Dragonfly in Amber

Hell, Time

“It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: On Love

Time, Indifference, Forgetting

“The way Leo figured it, he spent more time crashing than he did flying. If there was a rewards card for frequent crashers, he'd be, like, double platinum level.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Way, Time, Flying

“The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Thinking, Time

“It made perfect sense, and at the same time nothing seemed to.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Variant: It all made perfect sense, and at the same time, nothing seemed to make sense at all.
Source: A Walk to Remember

Sense, Time, Perfection

“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

“My time I divide as follows: the one half I sleep; the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep; that would be a shame, because to sleep is the height of genius.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

Dreams, Sleep, Time

“If you are not trying to hold on to time, you are not so afraid of losing it.”

Suzanne Collins book Gregor the Overlander

Source: Gregor the Overlander

Time

“bringing up children was]like living with a bunch of drunks… you really have to be on your toes all the time.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

Children, Time

“Because we don't have much time together, I will give you as much love in a year as I could give you in a lifetime.”

Amélie Nothomb Métaphysique des tubes

Source: Métaphysique des tubes

Love, Time

“Being young is an 18 year prison sentence for a crime your parents committed. But you do get time off for good behavior.”

Orson Scott Card book Empire

Source: Empire

Behavior, Parent, Time

“For the time being
Words scatter
Are they fallen leaves?”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

Time

“I don't care what your nose says! The last time you smelled half-blood, it turned out to be a meatloaf sandwich!"
"Meatloaf sandwiches are good! But this is a half-blood scent, I swear. They are on board!"
"Bah, your brain isn't on board!”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

Time

“People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

People, Dreams, Time

“Anyone can live in a house, but homes are created with patience, time and love.”

Jane Green (1968) British writer

Source: The Beach House

Love, Home, Time, Housing

“Love flourishes in expectation. Expectation strolls through the spacious fields of Time towards Opportunity.”

Umberto Eco book The Island of the Day Before

Source: The Island of the Day Before

Love, Time

“The future is now. It's time to grow up and be strong. Tomorrow may well be too late.”

Neil LaBute (1963) Film director, playwright, screenwriter

Source: Reasons to Be Pretty

Strong, Time, Future

“He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands.”

Susanna Clarke book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Source: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

World, Understanding, Time, Waiting

“Dreams have a hard time surviving when confronted with reality.”

Mathias Malzieu (1974) French singer

Dreams, Reality, Time

“That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

1
Variant: It's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.
Source: The Kite Runner (2003)

Way, Learning, Time, Past

“Time can tick when there is no clock.”

Anne Rice The Wolf Gift

Source: The Wolf Gift

Time

“As if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. Since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Variant: And now I'm looking at you, he said, and you're asking me if I still want you, as if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything ever has.
Source: City of Glass

Love, Time

“If you could just ravel out into time. That would be nice. It would be nice if you could just ravel out into time”

William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying

Source: As I Lay Dying

Time

“Talent? That's not talent. Talent is Liza Minnelli tap dancing and singing at the same time. What I just saw was devastation. Dying man on the cross. Salvation in B minor.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Singing, Time, Dance

“Say your name over two hundred times and discover you are no one.”

Stephen King The Running Man

Source: The Running Man

Time

“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Time

“I'm human. That's how humans spend their time, doing shitty things.”

Nick Hornby book How to Be Good

Source: How to Be Good

Time

“Your going to come across people in your life that say all the right things at the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. it's actions, not words, that matter.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Rescue

Variant: You're going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. It's actions, not words, that matter.
Source: The Rescue

Life, People, Time

“That is what love is I thought. A possibility that becomes a choice. A choice you keep making over and over. Day after day. Year after year. Time after time.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Variant: That is what love is. A possibility that becomes a choice. A choice you keep making, over and over. Day after day. Year after year. Time after time.
Source: Golden: A Retelling of Rapunzel

Love, Time

“If you don't take the time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”

Michael J. Fox (1961) Canadian-American actor

Time

“Now, for the first time, he's seeing that there really is a way out of this, and it's all so simple. You don't have to run away. You just meet somebody special and step sideways into a parallel universe.”

Irvine Welsh book Skagboys

Source: Skagboys

Way, Universe, Time

“The immense distances to the stars and the galaxies mean that we see everything ins pace int he past, some as they were before the Earth came to be. Telescopes are time machines.”

Carl Sagan book Pale Blue Dot

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Star, Time, Past

“No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge book Biographia Literaria

Source: Biographia Literaria (1817), Ch. XV

Time

“It wasn’t a gun wound. I just fell. (Zarek)
No offense, but you’d have to fall of Mount Everest to have those kinds of wounds. (Astrid)
Yeah, maybe next time I’ll remember to take my climbing gear with me. (Zarek)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

Time

“There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Life, People, Problem, Time

“I can see time," whispered Mogget, so softly that his words were lost.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Sabriel

Time

“People come in and out of your life. For a time they are your world; they are everything. And then one day they're not. - Lara Jean”

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

Variant: People come in and out of your life. For a time they are your world; they are everything. And then one day they’re not. There’s no telling how long you will have them near.
Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Life, People, World, Time

“For it is only by forgetting that we ever really drop the thread of time and approach the experience of living in the present moment, so elusive in ordinary hours.”

Michael Pollan (1955) American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism

Source: The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World

Time, Forgetting

“The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.”

Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) American journalist

Time

“By the time Alec came back into the training room, Jace was lying on the floor, envisioning lines of dancing girls in an effort to ignore the pain in his wrists. It wasn’t working.
~pg. 317~”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Pain, Girl, Lying, Effort

“You can't just be reading books all the time and leave the writting of them to others.”

Joseph Delaney (1945) British writer

Source: Night of the Soul Stealer

Books, Time, Reading

“"You disappear so completely into your head sometimes. I wish I could follow you."
You do. You live in my head all the time.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Jace and Clary, pg. 354
Variant: You disappear so completely into your head sometimes," he said. "I wish I could follow you.
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Time

“Time is the enemy of identity”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Time

“Time is for dragonflies and angels. The former live too little and the latter live too long.”

James Thurber book The 13 Clocks

Source: The 13 Clocks

Angels, Time

“For is there any practice less selfish, any labor less alienated, any time less wasted, than preparing something delicious and nourishing for people you love?”

Michael Pollan book Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

Source: Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

Love, People, Time, Selfishness

“I’m an incurable romantic. The essence of romance is an unshakable conviction that next time will be different.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 135, “Taglios: The Mad Season” (p. 747)

Time

“There’s nothing worse than falling in love with a person over and over every time you lay eyes on them, especially when you hate their goddamn guts”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Love, Hate, Time, Personality

“Have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time - beautiful?”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Variant: No, he is not tactful, yet have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet, at the same time, beautiful?
Source: A Room with a View

People, Beauty, Time

“D'ye ken that the only time I am without pain is in your bed, Sassenach? When I take ye, when I lie in your arms-my wounds are healed, then, my scars forgotten.”

Diana Gabaldon book The Fiery Cross

Source: The Fiery Cross

Pain, Lie, Time

“Here's another piece of advice, only date people who have read a different set of books than you have read, it will save you lots of time in the library.”

Tony Kushner (1956) American playwright and screenwriter

People, Books, Time, Reading

“White bee, even when you are gone you buzz in my soul
You live again in time, slender and silent.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Source: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Soul, Bee, Time

“Why spend the afternoon making a meal that will be gone in an hour," she'd ask us, "when in the same amount of time, I can do a painting that will last forever?”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

Time, Painting

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people, some of the time, but you can fool yourself anytime you need to badly enough.”

Hilari Bell book Navohar

Source: Navohar

People, Fools, Time

“The whole of life is but a moment of time. It is our duty, therefore to use it, not to misuse it.”

Plutarch book Moralia

Moralia, Of the Training of Children
Variant: The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it, therefore, while it lasts, and not spend it to no purpose.

Life, Time

“Every time you love someone, you put not just
your faith in them, but your faith in everything
to the test.”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

Love, Faith, Time

“My brief flash of relief and confidence melted away. Good thing it did, too. I'm sure the world would come to an end if I were allowed to feel a sense of relief and well-being for any length of time.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

World, Feeling, Confidence, Sense

“What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.”

John Irving book The Cider House Rules

Source: The Cider House Rules

People, Time, Sad, Depressing

“That if desperate times call for desperate measures, then I'm free to act as desperately as I wish.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Time

“it's back to school time. or as home-schoolers call it, stay-where-you-are time.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

School, Home, Time

“I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.”

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

If 6 Was 9
Song lyrics, Axis: Bold as Love (1967)
Source: Jimi Hendrix - Axis: Bold as Love

Life, Way, Time

“But when they were done, I wondered if there would be a next time. I felt good. I wasn’t dead, yet something was dead. Perhaps I’d managed my peculiar objective of partial suicide. I was lighter, airier than I’d been in years.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted

Suicide, Time, Dead

“On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Time

“you will never catch up.
Walk around feeling like a leaf
know you could tumble at any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

--The Art of Disappearing”

Naomi Shihab Nye (1952) American writer

Source: Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young Poets

Art, Feeling, Time

“Where we choose to be, where we choose to be--we have the power to determine that in our lives. We cannot reel time backward or forward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being.”

Sena Jeter Naslund (1942) American writer

Source: Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer

Time

“Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Quoted in The Sunday Times Magazine, London (16 September 1973).
1970s
Variant: Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.

Time

“I didn't realize then that so much of being adult is reconciling ourselves with the awkwardness and strangeness of our own feelings. Youth is the time of life lived for some imaginary audience”

Douglas Coupland book Girlfriend in a Coma

Source: Girlfriend in a Coma

Life, Youth, Feeling, Time

“I have to win this now, and for all time, or I’ll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Time, Fight

“Lei had recently discovered how to change the display, like the Times Square JumboTron, so now the banner read: Merry Christmas! All your presents belong to Leo!”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Diaries

Variant: Leo had recently discovered how to change the display, like the Times Square JumboTron, so now the banner read: Merry Christmas! All your presents belong to Leo!
Source: The Demigod Diaries

Change, Time, Reading, Christmas

“There's something so universal about that sensation, the way running unites our two most primal impulses: fear and pleasure. We run when we're scared, we run when we're ecstatic, we run away from our problems and run around for a good time.”

Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Pleasure, Fear, Way, Problem