Quotes about timing
page 45

“I could not count the times during the average day when something would come up that I needed to tell him. This impulse did not end with his death. What ended was the possibility of response.”

Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking

Source: The Year of Magical Thinking

Death, Time

“I'll think about you everyday. Part of me is scared that there'll come a time when you don't feel the same way, that you'll somehow forget about what we shared, so this is what I want to do forever.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Way, Feeling, Thinking, Time

“A good book is always on tap; it may be decanted and drunk a hundred times, and it is still there for further imbibement.”

Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British journalist

Books, Time

“Now was not a good time, but we didn't often get to chose the time to repay our debts.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Time

“Have you ever heard of the theory of relativity?"
Artemis blinked. "Is this a joke? I have traveled through time, Doctor. I think I know a little something about relativity.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Last Guardian

Travel, Thinking, Time

“The years go by, and I've told the story so many times that I'm not sure anymore whether I actually remember it or whether I just remember the words I tell it with.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Source: The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's Memory

Time

“I'll just tell you what I remember because memory is as close as I've gotten to building my own time machine.”

Samantha Hunt The Invention of Everything Else

Source: The Invention of Everything Else

Memory, Time

“Riding the train gives him too much time to think, he has decided. Too much thinking can ruin you.”

Judith Guest Ordinary People

Source: Ordinary People

Thinking, Time, Training

“Inelegantly, and without my consent, time passed.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

Time

“Our torments also may in length of time
Become our Elements.”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

Source: Paradise Lost

Time

“maybe he's falling in love with the idea of falling in love with me. Maybe he wants to be in love with someone and I've ended up in the right place at the right time.”

Candace Bushnell book Summer and the City

Source: Summer and the City

Love, Idea, Time

“But, with time, one has encountered many of the monsters, and one is increasingly less terrified of those still to be met.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

Time

“Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

Books, World, Time

“I like autumn. The drama of it; the golden lion roaring through the back door of the year, shaking its mane of leaves. A dangerous time; of violent rages and deceptive calm, of fireworks in the pockets and conkers in the fist.”

Joanne Harris (1964) British author

Source: Gentlemen and Players

Autumn, Rage, Time

“It's a full time job with a part-time companion.”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Source: Bared to You

Time, Parting

“As long as there's such a thing as time, everybody's damaged in the end, changed into something else. It always happens, sooner or later.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Change, Time

“Was his body made out of orange rocks and did he at any point yell 'It's clobbering time'?"
"I find your attempt at levity inappropriate."
"Consider me properly chastised.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Time

“Our virtues make us; but virtues are not enough, we must deploy our vices at times.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall

Time

“I learned you pay for your happiness. That's why I don't expect to be happy all the time. I'd rather be surprised by one moment every so often to remind me that joy is possible, even if I have to pay for it later.”

Esmeralda Santiago (1948) Puerto Rican writer and actor

Source: Conquistadora

Happiness, Learning, Time, Joy

“Universal access to human knowledge is in our grasp, for the first time in the history of the world. This is not a bad thing.”

Cory Doctorow (1971) Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author

World, History, Knowledge, Universe

“I have lived a long time, and one thing I have come to see is that one is well served by a degree of both humility and charity when judging the inner workings of another person's heart”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Time, Heart, Personality

“I don't feel the slightest interest in the next world; I think it's here. And I think anything good that you're going to do, you should do for other people here and not so you can try to have a happy time in the next world.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Happiness, People, World, Feeling

“… saying that you don’t have time to improve your thoughts and your life is like saying you don’t have time to stop for gas because you’re too busy driving. Eventually it will catch up with you.” - The Monk who sold his Ferrari”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Life, Business, Time

“He felt a momentary pang of regret that he had not spent more time with his beloved wife. But it passed when he remembered that the reason he’d gone to sea in the first place was that he had never really liked his beloved wife.”

Dave Barry book Peter and the Starcatchers

Source: Peter and the Starcatchers

Time, Sea

“You can't do extraordinary things in the world if you're spending time criticizing others because they don't look or behave the way you think they should.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Natural Born Charmer

World, Way, Thinking, Time

“There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, (1963)

Men, Time, Despair

“There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;”

T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
Context: There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands,
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Time

“And I would do it again. I love you, Jace Wayland-Herondale-Lightwood-whatever you want to call yourself. I don't care. I love you and I will always love you, and pretending it could be any other ways is just a waste of time.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Love, Way, Time

“It is a commonplace of all religious thought, even the most primitive, that the man seeking visions and insight must go apart from his fellows and love for a time in the wilderness.”

Loren Eiseley (1907–1977) US philosopher (1907-1977)

Love, Time

“Tracy, the leader of the CDH group, looks at me with eyes that seem to belong to someone three times her age. It's something beyond wisdom, all the way to insanity and back. It's like her eyes are scarred from all the things she's seen.”

Augusten Burroughs book Dry

Source: Dry

Wisdom, Age, Way, Time

“Language has time as its element; all other media have space as their element.”

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

Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

Time

“I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Source: The Secret History

Life, Time

“As you become more clear about who you really are, you'll be better able to decide what is best for you - the first time around.”

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

Source: The Uncommon Wisdom of Oprah Winfrey: A Portrait in Her Own Words

Time

“If you haven't been in a war and are wondering how long it takes to get used to losing everything you think you need or love, I can tell you the answer is no time at all.”

Meg Rosoff book How I Live Now

Source: How I Live Now

Love, War, Thinking, Time

“I am both happy and sad at the same time, and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Variant: So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Happiness, Sadness, Time

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

Variant: Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you.

Life, People, Time

“We still should have enough time to reach Rome.”
Hazel scowled. “When you say…”
Leo shrugged. “How do you feel about?”
Hazel put her face in her hands for a count of three. “Sounds about typical for us.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Feeling, Time

“Don't lose heart if it's very difficult at times, everything will come out all right and nobody can in the beginning do as he wishes.”

Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Time, Heart

“When the time came to leap in faith, whether you had your eyes open or closed or screamed all the way down or not made no practical difference.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book The warrior's Apprentice

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)

Faith, Way, Time

“Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

Democracy, Time

“Not enough." Margo rose and tucked the towel in place. " Come on, let's go stuff her in a locker. For old time's sake.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Daring to Dream

Time

“Life isn't long enough to enjoy and understand all at the same time. You have to decide which is more important”

Pedro Juan Gutiérrez (1950) Cuban writer

Source: Dirty Havana Trilogy

Life, Understanding, Time

“I stopped loving my father a long time ago. What remained was the slavery to a pattern.”

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

Love, Time

“I don't know if mama was right, that we each have a destiny, or if if was Lt Dan, that we are all just floating around, accidental, like on a breeze, but I think… I think… maybe… it's both happening at the same time.”

Winston Groom Forrest Gump

Source: Forrest Gump

Thinking, Time

“A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Imagination, Time

“Remember There’s No Such Thing As An Unrealistic Goal – Just Unrealistic Time Frames”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Time

“We're so busy watching out for what's just ahead of us that we don't take time to enjoy where we are.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Business, Time

“Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual sadness.”

Shakti Gawain (1948–2018) Author

Sadness, Feeling, Sense, Loss

“Then I went to bed and cried into my pillow. I wasn't sad, not at all. It was just so beautiful to have an intense feeling and the right words at the same time.

What are we but our stories?”

James Patterson book Sam's Letters to Jennifer

Source: Sam's Letters to Jennifer

Sadness, Beauty, Feeling, Time

“Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds-- all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.”

Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909) American author and Unitarian clergyman

People, Time

“I see time away hasn’t made you any more charming. (Fang)
Oh, I can be charming. I just choose not to. People start to think you like them, then when you stab them in the back, they take it so personally. Really pisses me off. (Thorn)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Bad Moon Rising

People, Thinking, Time, Personality

“I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them--with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.”

Eudora Welty book One Writer's Beginnings

One Writer's Beginnings(1984)
Context: It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they came from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them -- with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.

Love, Books, Time

“Most people think it takes a long time to change. It doesn’t. Change is immediate! Instantaneous! It may take a long time to decide to change…but change happens in a heartbeat!”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Source: The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective

People, Thinking, Change, Time

“Such Small Things:
For a long time there were only your footprints & laughter in our dreams & even from such small things, we knew we could not wait to love you forever.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Love, Dreams, Laughter, Time

“Love between two people can last a long time if the people love themselves some, and are ready to give love to another person.”

James Patterson book Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

Source: Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

Love, People, Time, Personality

“It's gonna be okay," I said. It was the first time in a long time that I believed it. "It will.”

Sarah Dessen book Keeping the Moon

Source: Keeping the Moon

Time

“In time we often become one with those we once failed to understand.”

Patti Smith M Train

Source: M Train

Understanding, Time

“Every time I annoy him, he retreats into his No Mundanes Allowed tree house.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Simon to Clary, pg. 151
Variant: Every time I annoy him, he retreats into his No Mundanes Allowed tree house.
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Time

“We never can just stop time. Or take moments back. Life doesn't work that way, does it?”

Christine Feehan American writer

Source: Oceans of Fire

Life, Way, Time, Back To Work

“The NET is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it.”

William Gibson (1948) American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist and founder of the cyberpunk subgenre

Name of an article http://www.voidspace.org.uk/cyberpunk/gibson_wasteoftime.shtml he wrote for New York Times Magazine (14 July 1996)

Time

“We can never possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

Time

“Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer.”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

Age, Time, New Year

“Tough times don't last, tough people do, remember?”

Gregory Peck (1916–2003) American actor

People, Time, Motivational

“Myst hasn't returned yet, But you know that, or else you'd both be naked and fornicating on the front lawn"
"The night's young. Give us time, and it was a field a mile away."

A Valkyrie and Nikolai Wroth pg 322”

Kresley Cole book A Hunger Like No Other

Source: A Hunger Like No Other

Time, Night

“The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

Time, Painting, Night, Good Night

“One has no talent. I have no talent. It's just a question of working, of being willing to put in the time.”

Graham Greene (1904–1991) English writer, playwright and literary critic

Question, Time

“He gave her a bright fake smile; so much of life was a putting off of unhappiness for another time. Nothing was ever lost by delay. He had a dim idea that perhaps if one delayed long enough, things were taken out of one's hands altogether by death.”

Graham Greene book The Heart of the Matter

Source: The Heart of the Matter

Life, Death, Smile, Idea

“When there is an invisible elephant in the room, one is from time to time bound to trip over a trunk.”

Karen Joy Fowler book We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Source: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Time

“For a Hero cannot triumph all the time. Sometimes he will be defeated, and how he faces that defeat is a test of his character.”

Cressida Cowell book How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

Source: How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

Time

“Everybody is wrong about everything, just about all the time.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Time

“What seems tragic now won't even be an issue in a few years time.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Time

“I always think of books as being like people. Even the dull ones are worthy of decent respect, but you don't have to seek them out and spend time with them.”

Orson Scott Card Treasure Box

Source: Treasure Box

People, Books, Thinking, Time

“My relationship with my father had been on the proverbial fritz since the time I was fifteen and called the police to report him for child molesting. He had never molested me, but I wanted to have a party that weekend and needed him out of the house.”

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

Source: My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands (2005)

Time, Housing

“Hard to argue with a woman, period. Only time a man wins with one of them is when the woman is either on TV or dead. (Jack)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Bad Attitude

Time, Dead

“The time was fast approaching when Earth, like all mothers, must say farewell to her children.”

Arthur C. Clarke book 2001: A Space Odyssey

Source: 2001: A Space Odyssey

Children, Time

“Juliet and Romeo be damned, you can't be in love until you've flossed your teeth next to the person at least three hundred times…”

Marisha Pessl Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Source: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Love, Time, Personality

“For all evils there are two remedies - time and silence.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Silence, Evil, Time

“She died chasing greatness and never saw it each time it was in her hand, so she kept seeking it elsewhere, but never understood the work required to get it or to keep it.”

Abraham Verghese book Cutting for Stone

Source: Cutting for Stone

Time

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

Misattributed

Life, Death, Fear, Time

“Books have been my classroom and my confidant. Books have widened my horizons. Books have comforted me in my hardest times. Books have changed my life.”

Po Bronson (1964) American writer

Life, Books, Confidence, Change

“I suddenly understood that even love and caring weren't always enough. They were the concrete bricks of our relationship, but unstable without the mortar of time spent together, time without the threat of imminent separation hanging over us.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Love, Time

“… dusk is the time when men whisper of matters about which they remain silent in the full light of the sun.”

Simon Raven (1927–2001) British writer

Men, Light, Time, Sun

“Truly happy memories always live on, shining. Over time, one by one, they come back to life.”

Banana Yoshimoto book Kitchen

Source: Kitchen (1988)

Life, Happiness, Memory, Time

“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

“She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Americanah

Source: Americanah

Feeling, Time

“If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they would never have found time to conquer the world.”

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

As quoted in The Medical Record No. 674 (6 October 1883); also in And I Quote : The Definitive Collection of Quotes, Sayings, and Jokes for the Contemporary Speechmaker (1992) by Ashton Applewhite, Tripp Evans and Andrew Frothingham, p. 447

World, Learning, Time

“When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

Learning, Time, Powerful, Graduation

“What happened to him? (Lioness)
He pissed me off. (Savitar)
Why hasn’t one of the other jaguars taken his place? (Lioness)
He pissed me off… big time. (Savitar)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Unleash the Night

Time

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Hyperion http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5436, Bk. III, Ch. IV (1839). <br class="br">Variant: Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad. <br class="br">Context: "Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed, I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."

Secret, World, Sadness, Time