A Lifetime Ago Quotes & Sayings

...I clutched her hand and pulled it to my chest. "Make me a promise, Reagan," I whispered. "Anything, name it." "If I ever treat you anything less than precious, promise that you'll tell me so and remind me of this conversation." "I promise, and promise me that you'll do the same." We linked our fingers as we did sitting in my car, which seemed like a lifetime ago. The feeling of that connection was the last thing I was aware of before we both drifted off to sleep. — Robin Alexander

Jessica, falling in love can't always be a happily ever after or a once in a lifetime kind of story. Those happen in books, in movies. This is life and it's real. Life has no script, no outline. We broke the rules of love long ago. All I know for sure is that with you, the rules will never apply. — Kathryn Perez

I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago.
For a little while I'm not afraid.
Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last.
Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. — Ray Bradbury

sometimes it feels like
yesterday.
other time it feels
like a lifetime ago.
i'm having a hard time
remembering her voice,
but i find myself
saying things that
liz
would have said if
she
were standing next to me,
looking at our child.
like cute.
and pretty. — Matthew Logelin

My own memories of the vimanas during my lifetime as Yudhisthira are that they were basically leftovers from a golden age several thousand years before when India was a colony of Atlantis. The epic Ramayana dates from this earlier time frame and chronicles a war with the Atlaneans when India rebelled against their oppressive rule. Toward the later days of Atlantis's history, it had been bent on tyrannical world domination by force. In that distant time, more than twelve thousand years ago, the vimanas were far larger and more numerous than they were during my lifetime as Yudhisthira. — Michael K Jaco

From a personal perspective, I am disappointed that we have yet to really achieve a full understanding of the origins of life on Earth. What was the spark that, billions of years ago, kickstarted the process of evolution that has brought us life as we know it today? I hope that we will get some answers to that in my lifetime. — Martin Rees

Where are you hiding my love?
Each day without you will never come again.
Even today you missed a sunset on the ocean,
A silver shadow on yellow rocks I saved for you,
A squirrel that ran across the road,
A duck diving for dinner.
My God! There may be nothing left to show you
Save wounds and weariness
And hopes grown dead,
And wilted flowers I picked for you a lifetime ago,
Or feeble steps that cannot run to hold you,
Arms too tired to offer you to a roaring wind,
A face too wrinkled to feel the ocean's spray. — James Kavanaugh

It was a very new love growing inside of her heart - so new and so young that she felt fiercely protective of it. As though the seed of love had been planted in the warm earth of her heart several weeks ago, just now it was starting to sprout roots she knew would climb deep into her soul, with tiny green tendrils that would one day burst through her to entangle with his. Too little warmth or water or sun could make the seed wither, and with all of her heart and all of her soul, she wanted this love to grow deep and tall and strong, because somewhere deep and certain inside of her, she knew what was happening between her and Stratton could be the love of a lifetime. — Katy Regnery

Not long ago, the city patrols would have arrested him on sight. Now, he's leaving the Republic as their champion, to be celebrated and remembered for a lifetime. — Marie Lu

We are communities in time and in a place, I know, but we are communities in faith as well - and sometimes time can stop shadowing us. Our lives are touched by those who lived centuries ago, and we hope that our lives will mean something to people who won't be alive until centuries from now. It's a great "chain of being," someone once told me, and I think our job is to do the best we can to hold up our small segment of the chain connected, unbroken. Our arms are linked - we try to be neighbors of His, and to speak up for his principles. That's a lifetime's job. — Dorothy Day

The act of writing, when it goes well, gives me a pleasure, a joy, unlike any other. It takes me to another place - irrespective of my subject - where I am totally absorbed and oblivious to distracting thoughts, worries, preoccupations, or indeed the passage of time. In those rare, heavenly states of mind, I may write nonstop until I can no longer see the paper. Only then do I realize that evening has come and that I have been writing all day. Over a lifetime, I have written millions of words, but the act of writing seems as fresh, and as much fun, as when I started it nearly seventy years ago. — Oliver Sacks

There are a lot of them, all around the wsorld, all built a lifetime ago, during the long and spectacular blaze of American military power and self-confidence, when there was nothing we couldn't or wouldn't do. I was a product of that era, but not a part of it. I was nostalgic for something I had never experienced. — Lee Child

Kong Qiu, or Master Kong as he was known, did not live to see his days of glory. During his lifetime, his views were received with scorn. But that was about two thousand five hundred years ago. A handful of his dedicated followers passed on Confucius' teachings to future generations.
After Confucius' death, his followers published his teachings in the book, The Analects of Confucius. — Confucius

Charlie and I decided long ago that in an investment lifetime, it's too hard to make hundreds of smart decisions. That judgment became ever more compelling as Berkshire's capital mushroomed and the universe of investments that could significantly affect our results shrank dramatically. Therefore, we adopted a strategy that required our being smart and not too smart at that, only a very few times. Indeed, we now settle for one good idea a year. — Warren Buffett

We've got an entire lifetime ahead of us to do things like get married. But sometimes things in people's lives don't happen in chronological order like they should. Especially in our lives. Our chronological order got mixed up a long time ago. — Colleen Hoover

Nobody today is nearly smart enough to make the sorts of weapons even the poorest nations had a million years ago. Yes, and they were being used all the time. During my lifetime, there wasn't a day when, somewhere on the planet, there weren't at least three wars going on. And the Law of Natural Selection was powerless to respond to such new technologies. No female of any species, unless maybe she was a rhinoceros, could expect to give birth to a baby who was fireproof, bombproof, or bulletproo — Kurt Vonnegut

Still, we've gone soft since those days of wartime sacrifice, haven't we? Contemporary humans are too self-centered, too addicted to gratification to live without the full freedom to satisfy our every whim - or so our culture tells us every day. And yet the truth is that we continue to make collective sacrifices in the name of an abstract greater good all the time. We sacrifice our pensions, our hard-won labor rights, our arts and after-school programs. We send our kids to learn in ever more crowded classrooms, led by ever more harried teachers. We accept that we have to pay dramatically more for the destructive energy sources that power our transportation and our lives. We accept that bus and subway fares go up and up while service fails to improve or degenerates. We accept that a public university education should result in a debt that will take half a lifetime to pay off when such a thing was unheard of a generation ago. — Naomi Klein

But that was a lifetime ago. A different person ago. — Sarah J. Maas

It feels as though there is a gaping hole in the middle of everything. The decades of my mother's life here with Thalia, they are dark, vast spaces to me. I have been absent. Absent for all the meals Thalia and Mama have shared at this table, the laughs, the quarrels, the stretches of boredom, the illnesses, the long string of simple rituals that make up a lifetime. Entering my child-hood home is a little disorienting, like reading the end of a novel that I'd started, then abandoned, long ago. — Khaled Hosseini

I was sitting in this small coffee shop a couple days ago and I saw this old man sitting at a table across from me. He looked so lonely, so sad. I was too, but it suddenly occurred to me that some people go through their whole lives never being loved or loving as deeply as I love you. There's always going to be the chance that I could lose you in this lifetime. There's nothing any of us can do about the possibility of loss. But in that moment, I decided that I was more interested in focusing on the great privilege I've been given in having you at all. Ch. 32 — Mia Sheridan

Inside each man, though he did not know it, nor ever considered it, was the image of the woman he someday must love. Whether she was composed of all the music he had ever heard or all the trees he had ever seen or all the friends of his childhood, certainly no one could tell. Whether the eyes were his mother's, and the chin that of a girl cousin swimming in a summer lake twenty-five years ago, this was unknowable also. But most men carried this image, like a locket, like a pearl-cameo, in their head a lifetime, taking it out only rarely, taking it never, after marriage, afraid then to compare it to the reality. And most men never saw the woman they would love anywhere, in the dark theatre, in a book, or passing on the street. They saw her only after midnight when the city was asleep and the pillow was cool under their heads. And she was a composite of all dreams and all women and every moonlit night since the calendar began. — Ray Bradbury

The few things I'd sacrificed, or put on hold, to be with my husband and
baby were worth it. That broken boy on the beach seemed like a lifetime ago. Years had passed, college and the NFL, marriage and a baby, but every once in a while, when Jude looked over at me and gave me that slow, knowing smile of his, I was that girl in a black string bikini all over again, longing for a boy I never thought could be mine. — Nicole Williams

Subjectively, a gnat doubtless feels that its span of a few days is a reasonably long lifetime. A tortoise, with its span of several hundred years, would feel subjectively the same as the gnat. Not so long ago the life expectancy of the average man was about forty-five years. Today it is from sixty-five to seventy years, but subjectively the years are faster, and death, when it comes, is always all too soon. — Alan W. Watts

Brittany Ellis, I'm goin' to prove to you I'm the guy you believed in ten months ago, and I'm gonna be the successful man you dreamed I could be. My plan is to ask you to marry me four years from now, the day we graduate.'And I guarantee you a lifetime of fun, probably one with no lack of fightin', for you are one passionate mamacita ... but I definitely look forward to some great make-up sessions. Maybe one day we can even go back to Fairfield and help make it the place my dad always hoped it would be. You, me, and Shelley. And any other Fuentes or Ellis family member who wants to be a part of our lives. We'll be one big, crazy Mexican-American family. What do you think? Mujer, you own my soul. — Simone Elkeles

Why do you ask?"
"Because I can."
"You can what?"
"I can go in the private collection!" I scurried toward him. "My father had a lifetime subscriptioin, Mr. Sheridan, and not just that, but he had special privileges. I'm certain I could use his name to get you into the private collection."
Daniel's jaw fell. "Why didn't you say so before?"
"What?" I recoiled. "How was I supposed to know you needed it?"
"We could've gone ages ago!"
My enthusiasm transformed into outrage. "In that case, why didn't you say you needed it?"
"Because I didn't know you had a subscription!"
"Aha!" I cried, thrusting a finger at him. "Your argument's a circle!"
Daniel sprang up. "We wasted all this time-"
"Silence!" Joseph roared. "You are like squawking parrots, and I have had quite enough. Miss Fitt, I would ask that you take Mr. Sheridan to the library immediately. Daniel, I would ask that you keep that big mouth of yours silent. — Susan Dennard

Slater Patalis had been drawn to their suburban home because of Elena. Until that awful, cruel day a lifetime ago, they'd been a family of six. Jeffrey, Marguerite, and their four girls. Mirabelle, with her hot blood and wild affection. Ariel, even tempered and bossy and protective. Elena, who wanted to do everything her older sisters did, and Beth, too young to truly remember now who they'd been together before Slater Patalis walked through the kitchen door. — Nalini Singh

Let me belong again to that faraway place I left so long ago, from which I am alienated, and which has forgotten me, in which I am an alien now even though it was the place where I began, let me belong again, walk those streets knowing they are mine, knowing that my story is a part of those streets, even though it isn't, it hasn't been for most of a lifetime, let it be so, let it be so — Salman Rushdie

When we get married, we promise a person the rest of our lives, "Til death do us part". But what if in another life we promised someone forever? What if ten lifetimes ago we promised someone lifetime after lifetime after lifetime? Think about it. Maybe that's why marriages fail when they do fail. Because maybe promises are never really broken. — C. JoyBell C.

I got my first lifetime achievement award years ago, and I was very excited, but then I got a sense of: Well, can one get a second lifetime award? — Michael Palin

Life seemed more transient now, with people commonly relocating and changing jobs during their lifetime - things that had almost never happened a century ago. — Brandon Sanderson

You know when i was a little kid in oregon i didn't feel that i was and american at all, with all that suburban ideal and sex repression and general dreary newspaper gray censorship of all our real human values but and when i discovered buddhism and all i suddenly felt that i had lived in a previous lifetime innumerable ages ago and now because of the faults and sins in that lifetime i was being degraded to a more grievous domain of existence and my karma was to be born in america where nobody has any fun or believes in anything, especially freedom. — Jack Kerouac

... she remembered watching a summer sunset from this very spot. Not so long ago; just a lifetime. — Sharon Kay Penman

I feel alive for the first time in years. I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. For a little while I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. I suppose I'll have to do even more violent things, exposing myself so I won't fall down on the job and turn scared again — Ray Bradbury

A year ago, she'd been on the verge of appearing on American Idol, but the producers said they were over their quota for brunettes. X Factor wanted her until they found out she'd almost made it onto American Idol. Then there was The Voice. Who would have thought one small wardrobe malfunction would cost her the chance of a lifetime? — Katie Graykowski

It feels like coming home - not just to any home, but a childhood home, a place left behind a lifetime ago; it's the familiarity of walking up stairs and knowing exactly which one is going to creak. — Paula Hawkins

We're obviously at the edge of something quite new in humanity's experience. That is this globalization process which isn't just economic or social, but involves the interpenetration of cultures, people moving to different places several times in their lifetime, traveling for business or pleasure, and marrying people of very different cultural backgrounds, all of which was almost impossible a hundred years ago. — Thomas Keating

By now you've already formed your own impression. you believe that an act committed a lifetime ago defines a man, or you believe that a person's past has nothing to do with his future. you think i am either a hero, or a monster. maybe knowning more about circumstances will make you think differently about me, but it won't change what happened twenty-eight years ago. — Jodi Picoult

During Darwin's lifetime, most working scientists came around to the view that evolution is a fact, but they argued about the importance of natural selection. One hundred and fifty years later, it has turned out that Darwin was essentially right on both counts, but his theory of natural selection left out a lot of details. Those details are still a subject of active research. There is no research, however, about whether evolution happens. That issue was settled over a century ago and is no longer an interesting scientific question. — Alan R. Rogers

There used to be Boy Scout troops on Mars; it makes sense if you think about it. I got my badge in knots, among other things. That was a lifetime ago, but it's surprising how much of the Boy Scout curriculum is useful after the apocalypse. Scratch that. It's not surprising at all. In hindsight, it seems like the Boy Scouts is an end-times preparation service. — Branden Frankel

It was a great opportunity that I had to take - my very own theater. That comes along once in a lifetime. It doesn't even seem like 15 years ago - time sure flies by. I've really had a lot of fun with it. — Lance Burton

I am very abnormal ... But it wasn't very long ago that I wasn't so abnormal. I was very normal and headed for a lifetime of paying medical bills as proof of my normalcy. — Dirk Benedict

He was one of those old people who give the impression of having undergone a lifetime trial by fire which they somehow managed to turn to their own good in the end; using the fire to burn away everything in them that could possibly decay, everything mortal. So that what remains finally are only their cast-iron hearts, the few muscles and bones tempered to the consistency of steel needed to move them about, the black skin annealed long ago by the sun's blaze and thus impervious to all other fires; and hidden deep within, out of harm's way, the indestructible will: old people who have the essentials to go on forever. — Paule Marshall

It seemed a lifetime ago i'd lain in bed with Lena and felt her breath tickling my chin and held her while she slept, felt her heart beating through her skin to mine.
it was a lifetime ago. everything was different. — Lauren Oliver

There are no humans left. I should not be alone. I can't help but wonder that. There were so many of us living. But time started growing young four years ago. It isn't four years anymore. It's a number I wouldn't even be able to say. It feels like four years. It's trapped in my tender memory as four years. It's been an age. Multiple ages. It's been lifetimes; every single lifetime that used to exist. I remember my mother screaming. I recall the doctors naming me as nurses wiped away her blood and covered her face with white. The end of the play. It's been so long. Why am I alone? — F.K. Preston

On the screen were some flashback shots of Daniel, Emma and Rupert from ten years ago. They were 12. I have also recently returned from New York, and while I was there, I saw Daniel singing and dancing (brilliantly) on Broadway. A lifetime seems to have passed in minutes. — Alan Rickman

It was quite a wedding and as I stood there watching I realized something I'd forgotten a long time ago. Sometimes in life there really are bonds formed that can never be broken. Sometimes you really can find that one person who will stand by you no matter what. Maybe you will find it in a spouse and celebrate it with your dream wedding. But there's also the chance that the one person you can count on for a lifetime, the one person who knows you sometimes better than you know yourself is the same person who's been standing beside you all along. — Greg DePaul

Tony poured wine into each glass and handed one to Claire. "Do you remember when we had wine at the Red Wing?"
Claire closed her eyes, recalling the scene from a lifetime ago, and nodded. "I do."
"I'd been watching you for years. I was so nervous that night. I thought I was planning your acquisition." He looked into his red liquid.
Her stance straightened, "If you're using business metaphors, may I suggest hostile takeover. It's more appropriate. — Aleatha Romig

There was a time I used to cry, but that was another lifetime ago. My heart was broken just once. But completely. As — Lisa Lutz

I guess the beautiful disaster turned into a beautiful wedding."
"Miracles do happen," I said remembering the conversation she and I had what seemed like a lifetime ago. — Jamie McGuire

No alien land in all the world has any deep strong charm for me but one, no other land could so longingly and so beseechingly haunt me, sleeping and waking, through half a lifetime, as that one has done. Other things leave me, but it abides me; other things change, but it remains the same. For me its balmy airs are always blowing, its summer seas flashing in the sun; the pulsing of it surfbeat is in my ear; I can see its garland crags, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms drowsing by the shore, its remote summits floating like islands above the cloud wrack; I can feel the woodland solitudes, I can hear the splash of its brooks; in my nostrils still lives the breath of flowers that perished twenty years ago.
-MARK TWAIN in an 1889 Dinner Speech at Delmonico's in New York to honor two baseball teams that had just returned from touring the Pacific, including Honolulu. — John Richard Stephens

I thought about my mother, and the words she said to me almost a lifetime ago. That's when it clicked: she had asked me not to settle, to fight for the person I loved, and for the first time, I did what she expected of me. I had finally lived up to who she wanted me to be. — Jamie McGuire

Our exertions generally find no enduring physical correlatives. We are diluted in gigantic intangible collective projects, which leave us wondering what we did last year and, more profoundly, where we have gone and quite what we have amounted to ...
How different everything is for the craftsman who ... can step back at the end of a day or lifetime and point to an object
whether a square of canvas, a chair or a clay jug
and see it as a stable repository of his skills and an accurate record of his years, and hence feel collected together in one place, rather than strung out across projects which long ago evaporated into nothing one could hold or see. — Alain De Botton

She's tough for a blueblood, he'd thought, a lifetime ago. Maybe tough enough to be with him. He hadn't considered that he might not be tough enough to be with her. — Cinda Williams Chima

Half a lifetime ago, I was forced at knifepoint to a grabage dump and gang-raped. — Janet Bode

I think of what Mamey told me long ago: there are many ways to love and be loved. Too bad it's taken most of a lifetime for me to understand what that means. — Christina Baker Kline

true fiction is more likely to include what was overlooked or ignored or barely seen or felt at the time of its occurrences but comes continually to mind ten or twenty years afterwards not on account of its having long ago provoked passion or pain but because of its appearing to be part of a pattern of meaning that extends over much of a lifetime — Gerald Murnane

I'm not trying to clock scores in this lifetime, it's just that things are better now than they were like five, ten years ago. Music has gotten a lot better. There's a lot of people who are committed to - soulfully. — Jerry Garcia