Expire Quotes & Sayings

How about y'all take a seat now, and let's get right to business,' Muffy says as she tucks her cream-colored skirt beneath her in a ladylike manner. We all do as she suggested and take a seat, with the exception of Special Agent Lancaster, who declares he'd prefer to stand. I suppose if he sat down, the stick up his butt would lodge so deeply into his brain that he would instantly expire, and then we'd have another corpse on our hands, so it's just as well. — Meg Cabot

The Shah "had traveled to Europe and had been fascinated by the march of progress he observed there. But, once back in Terhan, this fascination had not been translated into sustained Persian modernization, but rather dissipated in the Shah's intense but short-lived passion for the latest novelties. "He is continually taking up and pushing some new scheme or invention which, when the caprice has been gratified, is neglected or allowed to expire". — Charles Emmerson

just want him to treat my sister right because if he doesn't, I have an ass whippin' that I've put on reserve just for him, and it ain't never gonna expire. — S.K. Hardy

Cooking involves a deadline and hungry people and ingredients that expire in a week. It's stressful. Cooking happens on the stove and on the clock. Baking happens with ingredients that last for months and come to life inside a warm oven. Baking at Zomick's Bakery is slow and leisurely. — Zomick's Bakery

A pious man explained to his followers: 'It is evil to take lives and noble to save them. Each day I pledge to save a hundred lives. I drop my net in the lake and scoop out a hundred fishes. I place the fishes on the bank, where they flop and twirl. "Don't be scared," I tell those fishes. "I am saving you from drowning." Soon enough, the fishes grow calm and lie still. Yet, sad to say, I am always too late. The fishes expire. And because it is evil to waste anything, I take those dead fishes to market and I sell them for a good price. With the money I receive, I buy more nets so I can save more fishes. — Amy Tan

Let those who hanker after the past return to the past! Let those who want to leave the world leave the world! Let those who want to ascend to heaven do so! Let those whose souls want to leave their bodies expire quickly! The earth today should be inhabited by man with a firm hold on the present, a firm hold on the earth. — Lu Xun

All object printed: Love me. Look me. Million speaking objects,begging. Crown American consumer with power of king, to rescue choose and give home or abandon here for expire. — Chuck Palahniuk

Desire-Aspire-Perspire-Inspire but, don't Expire! — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

Contrary to popular assumption, going on an expedition around the world is not merely a matter of obtaining a ship and charting a course. There are visas to be considered, and bureaucracy to navigate when those visas fail to arrive in time, expire too soon, or meet with blank stares on the receiving end. The politics of nations and their economic markets may interfere with your journey. In short, you may spend an appalling amount of time mired in stuffy little offices, trying to get permission to be where you are. — Marie Brennan

Intellectual knowledge exists in and of the brain.
Because the brain is part of the body, which must one day expire, this collection of facts, however large and impressive, will expire as well.
Insight, however, is a function of the spirit.
Because your spirit follows you through cycle after cycle of life, death, and rebirth, you have the opportunity of cultivating insight in an ongoing fashion.
Refined over time, insight becomes pure, constant, and unwavering.
This is the beginning of immortality. — Lao-Tzu

I shall expect your reply within a month. Surely that is time enough to ... weigh your other offers.'
She stared at him. Well. She'd underestimated Lord Prescott. Or perhaps, more accurately, she hadn't fully estimated him ...
'Thank you, Lord Prescott. It's helpful to know that your desire for me will expire by a particular date.'
'Much like the desirability of any woman. You of all people should be fully aware that a woman's bloom doesn't last forever. Nor does her ability to bear children.'
...
'Thank you for reminding me. It slipped my mind, temporarily.'
He nodded, smiling a little, acknowledging her little barb. 'Good day, Miss de Ballesteros. I am not a man without feeling, and I think I shall depart now, to recover from the decidedly ambivalent receipt of my proposal.'
She smiled a little at that.
'Good day, Lord Prescott. Perhaps I should retire, too, to preserve my bloom. — Julie Anne Long

So do the dark in soul expire, Or live like scorpion girt by fire; So writhes the mind remorse hath riven, Unfit for earth, undoom'd for heaven, Darkness above, despair beneath, Around it flame, within it death. — Lord Byron

Feelings naturally arise as passing states of awareness and are not part of us - rather, they give feedback and then expire. — Deborah Sandella

In reading, friendship is restored immediately to its original purity. With books there is no forced sociability. If we pass the evening with those friends - books - it's because we really want to. When we leave them, we do so with regret and, when we have left them, there are none of those thoughts that spoil friendship: "What did they think of us?" - "Did we make a mistake and say something tactless?" - "Did they like us?" - nor is there the anxiety of being forgotten because of displacement by someone else. All such agitating thoughts expire as we enter the pure and calm friendship of reading. — Marcel Proust

I do not love the flowers that are about to expire. I fear my dotage mirrors the fading flower. Lush, blooming blossoms fall like a shower. I say to the young buds: let your prime retire. — Amy S. Kwei

For Death is the meaning of night;
The eternal shadow
Into which all lives must fall,
All hopes expire. — Michael Cox

I grew up on a farm in Oregon, an adopted child, with one sibling, and parents the age of all my peers' grandparents. We lived in isolation from the people around us, and it was always a struggle to cope with as a child. The heart can really expire under those conditions. I always felt like I was looking at the world from the outside. — Larry Harvey

A Lifetime Warranty on a concealed carry firearm isn't much good, If the firearm fails in an armed encounter, the owner of the firearm might expire, along with the warranty. — John Abbott

President Obama has repeatedly urged Congress to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those earning more than $250,000 a year. Increasing rates on top earners is an obvious way to raise revenue from those who can afford it most. — Christina Romer

A lovely young Italian girl passed by. Byron tilted his head to a very odd angle, half-closed his eyes and composed his features to suggest that he was about to expire from chronic indigestion. Dr Greysteel could only suppose that he was treating the young woman to the Byronic profile and the Byronic expression. — Susanna Clarke

When you love someone, do it right and love them forever. Don't leave them wondering the whole time when it's going to run out or expire. — Nicole Williams

Parts of the Voting Rights Act are due to expire next year if Congress doesn't extend them, including the section that guarantees that voting rights will be protected by the federal government. — Marty Meehan

Is there something you are allowing to escape your grasp or to expire that was clearly within our reach? Are you stuck with the mentality that if God wants you to have it, He'll give it to you? Or if its meant to be, it will be? Don't fool yourself; Nothing just happens! There is a cause and effect to everything in life and you need to be an active participant in the creation of your destiny. Becoming a silent partner with God is still not enough because faith without works is dead. — Dwaun S. Cox

Death's a fable. Did not Heaven inspire your equal Elements with living Fire blown from the Spring of Life? Is not that breath Immortal? Come; ye are as free from death as He that made ye: Can the flames expire which he kindled? — Francis Quarles

Sporting chivalrous contest helps knit the bonds of peace between nations. Therefore may the Olympic flame never expire. — Adolf Hitler

Day is the Child of Time, And Day must cease to be: But Night is without a sire, And cannot expire, One with Eternity. — Richard Henry Stoddard

'Obama and Biden want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars.' Guess what? Yes, we do in one regard: We want to let that trillion dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn't have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super-wealthy. That's not a tax raise. That's called fairness where I come from. — Joe Biden

If my sons are to become the kind of men our daughters would be pleased to live among, attention to domestic details is critical.The hostilities that arise over housework ... are crushing the daughters of my generation ... Change takes time, but men's continued obliviousness to home responsibilities is causing women everywhere to expire of trivialities. — Mary Blakely

The greatest thing about dreams is they don't expire. They can lay dormant for years and when you pull them out and dust them off, they shine like new. — Casi McLean

Tho none ought to conclude that their day or season of grace is quite expired, yet they ought to deeply apprehend the danger, lest it should expire before their necessary work be done and their peace made. For tho it can be of no use for them to know the former, and therefore they have no means appointed them by which to know it, 'tis of great use to apprehend the latter; and they have sufficient ground for the apprehension. — John Howe

Real friends are our greatest joy and our greatest sorrow. It were almost to be wished that all true and faithful friends should expire on the same day. — Francois Fenelon

Scholars postulate that the only thing that does not change is the every varying world. Other renowned thinkers postulate that the natural state of all things is to remain the same. Perhaps both propositions are vital. Perhaps it is normal to resist change because it threatens our present state of being. Perhaps it is natural to attempt to preserve the status quo because we are part of the external world and we wish to persevere, not expire. Perhaps it is inevitable that we all change. The natural forces are impossible to blunt. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Your coldness serves to emphasize my own inadequacy, and makes me feel that the best solution might be to expire. — Murasaki Shikibu

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long. — William Shakespeare

We are bound to expire. Even metal which is sturdiest, rusts. Even oxygen, the breath of life, soon transpires. — Luis Medina

There's no hurry. I'm not a pint of half-and-half about to expire. I can wait until I meet the right person. — Michael Grant

You always obey him? (Medea)If I didn't want to live, I'd stop taking human souls and expire. It would be a lot less painful than crossing Stryker. (Devyn) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Eve, we're here. Shall I carry you?" She sat up slowly, her hand going to her forehead. "I can walk." Or she'd crawl, or expire of pride in the filth of the mews before she'd allow him to assist her where others might notice. He handed her out of the carriage, and any fool could see she was none too steady on her feet. "You can ring a peal over my head later, my lady." "Deene, no." Such a weak protest wasn't going to deter him from scooping her up against his chest and proceeding toward the house. "For once in your stubborn life, hush. Your brothers would expect this much of me." The — Grace Burrowes

Isolate her, and however abundant the food or favourable the temperature, she will expire in a few days not of hunger or cold, but of loneliness. — Maurice Maeterlinck

Death. To die. To expire. To pass on. To perish. To peg out. To push up daisies. To push up posies. To become extinct. Curtains, deceased, Demised, departed And defunct. Dead as a doornail. Dead as a herring. Dead as a mutton. Dead as nits. The last breath. Paying a debt to nature. The big sleep. God's way of saying, "Slow down." — Patch Adams

You're born thinking you're the centre of things, and they chip away at that until you expire muttering If I knew then, or some nonsense in an empty rooming house. — Mark Anthony Jarman

Sky-Blue
The azure blue, the heavenly hue,
The first created realm of blue;
And over its radiance divine
My soul does pour its love sublime.

My heart that once with joy did glow
Is plunged in sorrow and in woe,
But yet it thrills and loves anew
To view again the sapphire blue.

I love to gaze on lovely eyes
That swim in azure from the skies;
The heavens lend this color fair,
Arid leave a dream of gladness there.

Enamored of the limpid sky,
My thoughts take wing to regions high,
And in that blue of liquid fire
In raptured ecstasy expire.

When I am dead no tears will flow
Upon my lonely grave below,
But from above the aerial blue
Will scatter over me tears of dew.

The mists about my tomb will wind
A veil of pearl with shadows twined;
But lured by sunbeams from on high
Twill melt into the azure sky. — Nikoloz Baratashvili

I'd close those eyes again if I were you."
Sterling jerked his head to the side to discover his worst nightmare sitting there.
Swindler's gaze bore into him.
"It would be unfortunate if Graves misjudged the seriousness of your injury, and you were to suddenly expire on the spot. Frannie would be terribly disappointed," Swindler said. — Lorraine Heath

We are slaves in the sense that we depend for our daily survival upon an expand-or-expire agro-industrial empire - a crackpot machine - that the specialists cannot comprehend and the managers cannot manage. Which is, furthermore, devouring world resources at an exponential rate. We are, most of us, dependent employees. ... Edward Abbey (1927-1989) — Edward Abbey

Ari!" Jeb had finally seen his son. He rushed to Ari's side and knelt next to him. Looking stunned, he gathered Ari's hulking form and held him to his chest. "I'm so sorry." I saw his mouth shape the words, though I couldn't hear them. "I'm so sorry." He bent over Ari's form, mindless of his vulnerable position. — James Patterson

Remember, second chances don't expire until midnight. — Claire Morgan

He sat there silent, watching their love expire. — Marcel Proust

Alexis de Tocqueville took note of this fact in his Democracy in America, published in 1835: "In America," he wrote, "parties do not write books to combat each other's opinions, but pamphlets, which are circulated for a day with incredible rapidity and then expire."25 And he referred to both newspapers and pamphlets when he observed, "the invention of firearms equalized the vassal and the noble on the field of battle; the art of printing opened the same resources to the minds of all classes; the post brought knowledge alike to the door of the cottage and to the gate of the palace." 26 — Neil Postman

Woe is me!
The winged words on which my soul would pierce
Into the heights of love's rare universe,
Are chains of lead around its flight of fire
I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Wish" gives the warmth, the content, the imagination, the child's play, the freshness, and the richness to "will." "Will" gives the self-direction, the maturity, to "wish." Without "wish," "will" loses its life-blood, its
viability, and tends to expire in self-contradiction. If you have only "will" and no "wish," you have the dried-up, Victorian, neopuritan man. If you have only "wish" and no "will," you have the driven, unfree, infantile person who, as an adult-remaining-an-infant, may become the robot man.66 — Irvin D. Yalom

Men are very emotionally dependent upon women from the day they are born to the day they expire. — Laura Schlessinger

All fled - all done, so lift me on the pyre
The Feast is over, and the lamps expire. — Robert E. Howard

Don't wait to celebrate life until you retire, because you never know the day you will expire. — Maddy Malhotra

Hush, my darling! Hush, hush, Catherine! I'll stay. If he shot me so, I'd expire with a blessing on my lips. — Emily Bronte

Beauty crowds me till I die,
Beauty, mercy have on me!
But if I expire today,
Let it be in sight of thee — Emily Dickinson

The crazy thing is that I really wasn't under any pressure. My contract wasn't going to expire until the end of 2008, and everyone was satisfied with me. But I wasn't. I always wanted to improve. — Patrik Sinkewitz

But, father, there liv'd one who, then, Then - in my boyhood - when their fire Burn'd with a still intenser glow (For passion must, with youth, expire) — Edgar Allan Poe

Dance better than you. Right. Because that's so easy." "No, it's not easy. It's hard, very hard. Something to strive for. Something to expire to." "I think you mean 'aspire,'" I said, although expire was probably more accurate. — Annabel Joseph

Who rant by note, and through the gamut rage; in songs and airs express their martial fire; combat in trills, and in a fugue expire. — Joseph Addison

The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless ... From the conclusion of this war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to affect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion. — Thomas Jefferson

For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire. — Thomas Paine

A leader must inspire or his team will expire. — Orrin Woodward

Aspire to Inspire before you Expire! — Eugene Bell Jr.

Bryon tilted his head to a very odd angle, half-closed his eyes and composed his features to suggest that he was about to expire from chronic indigestion. — Susanna Clarke

Grief does not expire like a candle or the beacon on a lighthouse. It simply changes temperature. — Anthony Rapp

Most people have died before they expire; died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as it were, the locking of the door of the already deserted mansion. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

I would not see our candle blown out in the wind. It is a small thing, this dear gift of life handed us mysteriously out of immensity. I would not have that gift expire ... If I seem to be beating a dead horse again and again, I must protest: No! I am beating, again and again, living man to keep him awake and move his limbs and jump his mind ... What's the use of looking at Mars through a telescope, sitting on panels, writing books, if it isn't to guarantee, not just the survival of mankind, but mankind surviving forever! — Ray Bradbury

No true work since the world began was ever wasted; no true life since the world began has ever failed. Oh, understand those two perverted word, failure and success and measure them by the eternal, not the earthly, standard. When after thirty obscure, toilsome, unrecorded years in the shop of the village carpenter, one came forth to be pre-eminently the man of sorrows, to wander from city to city in homeless labors, and to expire in lonely agony upon the shameful cross
was that a failure. — Frederic Farrar

Jazz was born out of the whiskey bottle, was raised on marijiana, and will expire on cocaine. — Artie Shaw

This is how the darkness is. It knows nothing else. It fills crevices, pushing into the finest, narrowest corners, ascribing no meaning to the events that it carries, but birthing and then swallowing them again as they expire. — Jason Gurley

Enjoy every moment of life ,you don't know when your Visa on this planet will expire ! — Sandeep Kakkar

Closed door means knock," Elena said to Clay, shooing him out.
You've been in here for two hours," he said. "She can't need that much work." He frowned as he examined my outfit. "What the hell is she? A tree?"
"A dryad," Elena said, cuffing him in the arm.
"Oh, my god," Jamie said, surveying my outfit. "We forgot the bag!"
"Bag?" Clay said. "What does a dryad need with-"
"An evening bag," Cassandra said. "A purse."
"She's got a purse. It's right there on the bed."
"That's a day purse," Cassandra snapped.
"What, do they expire when the sun goes down? — Kelley Armstrong

Up until I was about thirty, I had a strong preference for men over women. I mean specifically as friends, as people to talk to. If a male and a female exactly alike were to enter a room, in my deformed perceptions the male was magnified into glory. It wasn't until this primitive preference began to expire, for whatever reasons, that it began to bother me that it had previously existed. — Rivka Galchen

The ideal racecar will expire 100 yards past the finish line. — Stirling Moss

Some men give as little light in the world as a farthing tallow candle, and when they expire, leave as bad an odor behind them. — George D. Prentice

Famine is good to the corn-merchant, evil to the poor, and indifferent to those whose fortunes can at all times command a superfluity. Ambition is evil to the restless bosom it inhabits, to the innumerable victims who are dragged by its ruthless thirst for infamy, to expire in every variety of anguish, to the inhabitants of the country it depopulates, and to the human race whose improvement it retards; it is indifferent with regard to the system of the Universe, and is good only to the vultures and the jackals that track the conqueror's career, and to the worms who feast in security on the desolation of his progress. It is manifest that we cannot reason with respect to the universal system from that which only exists in relation to our own perceptions. — Christopher Hitchens

Death is a long process," Archer says. "Your body is just the first part of you that croaks." Meaning: Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. And your anger about investing a lifetime in learning shit and loving people and earning money, only to have all that crap come to basically nothing. Really, your physical body dying is the easy part. Beyond that, your memories must die. And your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope, all that Personal Identity Crap can take centuries to expire. — Chuck Palahniuk

I fear not, I see not reason for fear. In the end we will be the victors. For though at times the flame of liberty may cease to shine, the ember will never expire. — Thomas Paine

We wanted to select our own labour. In another year the time will be up for most of the original gang. You see, they were recruited during the first year of Berande, and their contracts expire on different months. — Jack London

The tallest slugger touched my forehead, and I ignited like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Shards of dazzling light rippled under my skin. I was the constellation Grus. The Trifid Nebula. I was the Big Bang, expanding endlessly through time and space forever.
"I thought I was dying. That I was going to expire on a cold slab, trapped inside an UFO, my body filled with every light that had ever existed. I couldn't imagine a better way to die. — Shaun David Hutchinson

An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human. — Edward Abbey

When you breathe, you inspire, and when you do not breathe, you expire. — Confucius

But first, on earth as vampire sent,
Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent,
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race.
There from thy daughter, sister, wife,
At midnight drain the stream of life,
Yet loathe the banquet which perforce
Must feed thy livid living corse.
Thy victims ere they yet expire
Shall know the demon for their sire,
As cursing thee, thou cursing them,
Thy flowers are withered on the stem. — George Gordon Byron

An infant prodigy of nine is shoved upon the stage in white. She starts off in a dismal whine about a dark and stormy night, a burglar, whose heart is true, despite his wicked-looking face, who puts the little child in doom, to save her mamma's jewel case. This may bring tears to every eye; it does not set my heart on fire. I'd like to stand serenely by and watch that horrid child expire. — Noel Coward

Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, and beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The truth is that Fate does not go out of its way to be dramatic. If you or I had the power of life and death in our hands, we should no doubt arrange some remarkably bright and telling effects. A man who spilt the salt callously would be drowned next week in the Dead Sea, and a couple who married in May would expire simultaneously in the May following. But Fate cannot worry to think out all the clever things that we should think out. It goes about its business solidly and unromantically, and by the ordinary laws of chance it achieves every now and then something startling and romantic. Superstition thrives on the fact that only the accidental dramas are reported. — A.A. Milne

The prince's official job description as king will be 'defender of the faith,' which currently means the state-financed absurdity of the Anglican Church, but he has more than once said publicly that he wants to be anointed as defender of all faiths - another indication of the amazing conceit he has developed in six decades of performing the only job allowed him by the hereditary principle: that of waiting for his mother to expire. — Christopher Hitchens

It was like a dam of musical critique had broken. Imasu turned on him with eyes that flashed instead of shining. It is worse than you can possibly imagine! When you play, all of my mother's flowers lose the will to live and expire on the instant. The quinoa has no flavour now. The llamas are migrating because of your music, and llamas are not a migratory animal. The children now believe there is a sickly monster, half horse and half large mournful chicken, that lives in tha lake and calls out to the world to grant it the sweet release of death. — Cassandra Clare

For passion must, with youth, expire. — Edgar Allan Poe

So-called restoration is at least as tricky as brain surgery. Most pictures expire under scalpel and sponge. — Alexander Eliot

Tax incentives might spur hiring in the short run, but how lasting are those gains if the jobs expire with the tax credits and they come at the expense of investing in the new technologies of the future? — Myron Scholes

Keep Inspiring everyday, because when you retire, you will lose desire, become tired, and expire. — Michael Bassey Johnson

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade — W. H. Auden

TO MUSIC, TO BECALM HIS FEVER"


CHARM me asleep and melt me so
With thy delicious numbers,
That, being ravished, hence I go
Away in easy slumbers.
Ease my sick head
And make my bed,
Thou power that canst sever
From me this ill ;
And quickly still,
Though thou not kill
My fever.

Thou sweetly canst convert the same
From a consuming fire
Into a gentle-licking flame,
And make it thus expire.
Then make me weep
My pains asleep ;
And give me such reposes
That I, poor I,
May think thereby
I live and die
'Mongst roses.

Fall on me like a silent dew,
Or like those maiden showers
Which, by the peep of day, do strew
A baptim o'er the flowers.
Melt, melt my pains
With thy soft strains ;
That, having ease me given,
With full delight
I leave this light,
And take my flight
For heaven. — Robert Herrick

From her very flesh and blood and from the constant cycles of filling and emptying the red vase in her belly, a woman understands physically, emotionally, and spiritually that zeniths fade and expire, and what is left is reborn in unexpected ways and by inspired means, only to fall back to nothing, and yet be reconceived again in full glory. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Do your heart and head keep pace? When does hoary Love expire, When do frosts put out the fire? Can its embers burn below All that chill December snow? — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Moral decay first hampers and then strangles honest government, regular commerce, and even the ability to take genuine pleasure in the goods of this world. Compulsion is applied from above as self-discipline relaxes below, and the last liberties expire under the weight of a unitary state ... Since religion has lost its empire over the souls of men, the most prominent boundary that divided good from evil is overthrown; kings and nations are guided by chance and none can say where are the natural limits of despotism and the bound of license. — Russell Kirk

The neurons that do expire are the ones that made imitation possible. When you are capable of skillful imitation, the sweep of choices before you is too large; but when your brain loses its spare capacity, and along with it some agility, some joy in winging it, and the ambition to do things that don't suit it, then you finally have to settle down to do well the few things that your brain really can do well
the rest no longer seems pressing and distracting, because it is now permanently out of reach. The feeling that you are stupider than you were is what finally interests you in the really complex subjects of life: in change, in experience, in the ways other people have adjusted to disappointment and narrowed ability. You realize that you are no prodigy, your shoulders relax, and you begin to look around you, seeing local color unrivaled by blue glows of algebra and abstraction. — Nicholson Baker

I always fear that creation will expire before teatime. — Sydney Smith

I don't believe I exist, and soon I won't. I am a time being about to expire. — Ruth Ozeki