For Decades Quotes & Sayings

In Hong Kong, particularly, we craft this art for decades. The action choreographer actually is the action director. He takes over and he choreographs with - by himself or with his team, and place the camera where he feels cinematic effect to bring out that choreography. — Donnie Yen

Activists have not been passive. For decades, we have tried every tactic to shift the course of our governments. We have voted, written editorials and manifestos, donated money, held signs, protests in marches, blocked streets, shared links, signed petitions, held workshops, knitted scarves, learn to farm, turned off the television, programmed apps, engaged in direct action, committed vandalism, launched legal challenges against pipelines . . . and occupied the financial districts. All this has been for naught. A new approach to activism and a new kind of protest are desperately needed. — Micah White

Congress needs to send a strong signal that direct communication with the leader of the free world is a privilege, particularly for a regime that has been as hostile as Iran has been towards America for more than three decades. President Rouhani needs to take these two simple steps to demonstrate good faith before any further discussions. — Ted Cruz

When the last autumn of Dickens's life was over, he continued to work through his final winter and into spring. This is how all of us writers give away the days and years and decades of our lives in exchange for stacks of paper with scratches and squiggles on them. And when Death calls, how many of us would trade all those pages, all that squandered lifetime-worth of painfully achieved scratches and squiggles, for just one more day, one more fully lived and experienced day? And what price would we writers pay for that one extra day spent with those we ignored while we were locked away scratching and squiggling in our arrogant years of solipsistic isolation?
Would we trade all those pages for a single hour? Or all of our books for one real minute? — Dan Simmons

Just because your electronics are better than ours, you aren't necessarily superior in any way. Look, imagine that you humans are a man in LA with a brand-new Trujillo and we are a nuhp in New York with a beat-up old Ford. The two fellows start driving toward St. Louis. Now, the guy in the Trujillo is doing 120 on the interstates, and the guy in the Ford is putting along at 55; but the human in the Trujillo stops in Vegas and puts all of his gas money down the hole of a blackjack table, and the determined little nuhp cruises along for days until at last he reaches his goal. It's all a matter of superior intellect and the will to succeed.
Your people talk a lot about going to the stars, but you just keep putting your money into other projects, like war and popular music and international athletic events and resurrecting the fashions of previous decades. If you wanted to go into space, you would have. — George Alec Effinger

I came to see soldiers as men willing to lay down their lives for the sake of others. They fight for themselves and the generation under immediate attack, but certainly they fight for the futures of free peoples. Decades beyond World War II, I am one who benefited. That I can vote in presidential elections and not bend my knee to Hirohito's grandson is testament to the enduring work of the veterans of World War II. That I can write books for a living instead of sweating in a Third Reich factory is a product of Allied triumph. — Marcus Brotherton

After people like Lennon and Dylan, I think David Bowie brought a very modernistic intelligence and the necessity for change. I think he was completely positive, certainly through one and a half decades of completely overriding influence, in the best of popular music, and I take my bloody hat off to him! — Roger Meddows Taylor

[O]ne has to have endured a few decades before wanting, let alone needing, to embark on the project of recovering lost life. And I think it may be possible to review 'the chronicles of wasted time.' William Morris wrote in The Dream of John Ball that men fight for things and then lose the battle, only to win it again in a shape and form that they had not expected, and then be compelled again to defend it under another name. We are all of us very good at self-persuasion and I strive to be alert to its traps, but a version of what Hegel called 'the cunning of history' is a parallel commentary that I fight to keep alive in my mind. — Christopher Hitchens

Interracial marriages were basically legalized, but nevertheless, there was a social stigma attached to them for a long time to come. I imagine that's going to be true for same-sex marriages - that people's emotional comfort level with it will not fully materialize for decades. — Mark Takano

Before I sat down and became a writer, before I began to do it habitually and for my living, there was a decades-long stretch when I was terrified that it would suck, so I didn't write. I think that marks a lot of people, a real terror at being bad at something, and unfortunately, you are always bad before you can get a little better. — David Rakoff

My overall recommendation: for decades corporate policy manuals and HR departments have told people they are responsible for their own careers. It's about time people really heeded those warnings. — Jeffrey Pfeffer

For value investors, General Motors is a tempting target. The company's share of the North American auto market has steadily declined for two decades, and analysts say the company suffers from weak management and unexciting cars. — Alex Berenson

Even as a feminist, my whole life I'd been waiting for a man to love who could love me. For decades, I'd thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man, and he was my brother. — Mona Simpson

Jesus is why women have traveled continents, spent decades learning a strange language so they could translate the Gospel, planting churches, caring for the sick, educating the illiterate, and marching for the oppressed. — John Ortberg

The Iowa Women's Health Study, which has followed more than 35,000 women for decades, found eating more broccoli, cauliflower, kale and other cruciferous vegetables was associated with a lower risk of getting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in the first place. — Michael Greger

For three decades, Democrats and Republicans worked together to make our environment better. — Christopher Dodd

1 week ago i wrote:

"I asked God for decades "Who am i?"
he finally answered:
To know who you are,
you must first realise what you are."

I have turned and twisted this in my mind and
today i finally found the answer...

..who i am does not matter my beloved God
..what i am does not matter my beloved God
those i "love" is the only thing that matters.

you are so beautifull my beloved God
i thank you. — Faruk H.T.

I think the NAACP isn't recognized enough for all of the work it does, especially in the field of law. They may have faded from view over the last couple of decades, but they are fighting the good fight. — Tayari Jones

After investigating the government for more than two decades and authoring books on its secret programs, it's been my experience that the government does whatever the hell it wants, whenever the hell it wants, and justifies it later. — Anonymous

The past few decades of widening inequality can be summed up as significant income and wealth gains for those at the very top and stagnant living standards for the majority — Janet Yellen

We need to reflect with great seriousness about why many young people don't feel like getting married ... For fear of failure, many do not want to even think about it ... Many people believe the change that has taken place in recent decades was set in motion by the emancipation of women. But this argument is not valid, it is an insult, a form of misogyny. — Pope Francis

The role of race cannot be understated in an era of fervent social Darwinism. For decades the Balkans had enacted in microcosm the racial hatreds at great-power level. In consequence the Balkan states were likely, indeed expected, periodically to blow a head gasket over racial and religious differences and threaten a major confrontation by dragging their powerful sponsors into the local mess. — Paul Ham

The South: What is this place? What's different about it? Is it different anymore? Good questions. Old ones, too. People have been asking them for decades. Some of us even make our living by asking them, but we still don't agree about the answers. — John Shelton Reed

For decades I've had an intense interest in the history and mythology of the Silk Road, I think in part because an aspect of me loves the resonance of long distance travel as a theme or anchor, if you will, for narrative. The ways that cultures rise and fade across centuries, the ways cultures connect and conflict, absorb and reject, transform or remain static: As a writer this is thematic content that never gets old for me. A million million stories rise out of the endless back and forth of cultural contact in all its best and worst aspects, and everything in between. Weave that within a story of adventure or empire or a journey into unknown spaces and I'm in writer and reader hog heaven. — Kate Elliott

The increasing frequency of extreme weather events, droughts and floods is in line with what climate scientists have been predicting for decades - and evidence is mounting that what's happening is more severe than predicted, and will get far worse still if we fail to act. — David Suzuki

The many woes that afflict out nation are rooted in the morally bankrupt paradigms of socialism, interventionism, and empire that have held our nation in their grip for decades and that the only real solution to such woes is libertarianism. — Jacob G. Hornberger

So while the past is always implicit in the present, interpretation of the past varies with succeeding generations. The present meanings of the past evolve to reflect the concerns of each living generation. Thus although the meanings of specific events of the past may have had one set of meanings for the generation in the decades after the American Revolution, those same events may have very different meanings now. — Robert R. Archibald

I looked over at the others. "Anyone have tree-climbing issues?"
Obviously Ash and I didn't. Daniel, Hayley, and Corey said they'd be fine. Chloe hoped she would - she had gymnastics training. Mr. Bae joked that it would be his first time in a couple of decades. Derek said nothing.
"Derek?"
"It looks like I'll be the guy doing the distracting. I'm not trusting a tree branch to hold me."
"You're not playing decoy," Chloe said. She turned to us. "I'm sorry. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but he really can't. The last time we were in a fight against the St. Clouds, the orders were to tranq all of us except Derek. For him, it was shoot to kill. They don't trust werewolves."
"I think they've calmed down," Derek said. "They've been watching us for months and haven't tried to assassinate me yet."
Chloe put her hands on her hips. "And that's your definition of acceptance? Not going out of their way to kill you?" — Kelley Armstrong

When I was a child, I enjoyed thinking about the future, and especially
loved to imagine flying around in one of those cool bubble cars I'd seen
on The Jetsons cartoons. Here we are, fifty years later, and we have the same
gas- and oil-guzzling motor vehicles, the same basic planes, the same trains,
the same utility companies to monitor and charge for our electricity, gas, and
water usage. Jimmy Carter talked a lot about new sources of energy back in
the 1970s. So did some of the hippies. And yet, decades later, there has been
little progression on this front. — Donald Jeffries

Being a father is like directing Alien or Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It's much more difficult than directing an episode of TV. Also, directing a show or movie lasts a few months at most, parenting lasts for decades. — Misha Collins

We cannot conduct reforms that affect the people adversely. If therapy drags out for decades and no gleam of light is seen, it is certainly not in the interests of the country, not in the interests of the people. — Yevgeny Primakov

For decades we have been living lives of abundance, with little regard for our natural resources or global health. But we are now facing hard choices in our energy policy. Future generations - my children and grandchildren, along with yours - will have to live with the decisions we make today. And so it is time for us to make some tough and - hopefully - smart choices regarding our energy use and production before it is too late. — John McCain

For decades, the plight of the Palestinian people has been exacerbated by internal corruption, a lack of effective investment, and the political cynicism of the Arab states, who often did not have the best interests of the Palestinians at heart. — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

Tom Kizzia hasn't just observed and written about Alaska for three-plus decades, he's lived it. 'Pilgrim's Wilderness' is a story that needed to be told by the only man who could tell it. — Tom Bodett

As noted, there's nothing wrong with the DTP vaccine per se. However, studies that have been going on for more than two decades show that, when it is administered after other vaccines, such as BCG or measles vaccine, the combination can be deadly. But only if you're a girl. — Michael Brooks

You know those FBI shows on TV? Where they do the profiling?"
"Yeah."
"Cops hate that stuff. While it's all well and good to sit behind a desk and have assigned characteristics and fancy medical names for criminals," Jerry said in a prissy voice, "at the end of the day, you just don't know what anybody's gonna do. You gotta prepare for everything. Human beings are unpredictable. After three decades with PD, I still get surprised. — Jennifer Hillier

The skill sets it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, a successful marketer, or a relevant celebrity is a different skill set than you needed ten years ago, even though that was the skill set that mattered for decades. — Gary Vaynerchuk

He had all sorts of rules he'd constructed for himself over the decades, based on lessons someone must have taught him
what he wasn't entitled to; what he mustn't enjoy; what he mustn't hope or wish for; what he mustn't covet
and it took some years to figure out what these rules were, and longer still to figure out how to try to convince him of their falsehood. But this was very difficult: they were rules by which he had survived his life, they were rules that made the world explicable to him. — Hanya Yanagihara

I have been underestimated for decades. I have done very well that way. — Helmut Kohl

Children are seriously children for about a decade. But for five or more decades after that, they will be your friend - if you're fortunate to like each other. — Elaine N. Aron

The current leading candidates for dark matter are particles predicted to exist from supersymmetric theories, extensions of current particle physics that include a new symmetry of Nature. The reader may recognize the "super" in supersymmetry from superstring theory, a candidate theory for unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics. As of the winter of 2014, no evidence for supersymmetry had been found, despite decades of intense search and the enthusiastic support of many physicists. At this point, it is unclear and somewhat doubtful that supersymmetry is realized in Nature. — Marcelo Gleiser

At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons. There is nothing in the Tower that has not grown into its own form over the decades, nothing with which I am not linked. Here everything has its history, and mine; here is space for the spaceless kingdom of the world's and the psyche's hinterland. — C. G. Jung

Marijuana is quite possibly the finest of intoxicants. It has been scientifically proven, for decades, to be much less harmful to the body than alcohol when used on a regular basis (Google "Science"). — Nick Offerman

We haven't had a good energy policy in this country for decades and we're trying to get one. — Paul Gillmor

I am aware that for decades there has been exploration of options and concrete plans and investments being made to look at life on another planet. We must not stop exploring. At the same time let's preserve and enhance the life we already have on earth. Join the green revolution, plant trees, stop soil erosion, reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere and promote recycling of waste. Become aware, create awareness, act responsibly and lead by example. — Archibald Marwizi

Pop is everything art hasn't been for the last two decades ... It springs newborn out of a boredom with the finality and over-saturation of Abstract-Expressionism, which, by its own esthetic logic, is the END of art, the glorious pinnacle of the long pyramidal creative process. Stifled by this rarefied atmosphere, some young painters turn back to some less exalted things like Coca-Cola, ice-cream sodas, big hamburgers, super-markets and 'EAT' signs. They are eye-hungry; they pop ... — Robert Indiana

Jane Jacobs work wouldnt have been complete if it hadn't inspired others to carry it on, and evolve Jane's groundbreaking accomplishments so that the essential kernel of thought remains relevant for future generations. The essayists in What We See have built on those essential footholds that people who have never heard of Jane Jacobs will benefit from for decades. — Majora Carter

I don't know how long we talked about that game the first time my dad showed me the ticket stub. He admitted he hadn't even been sure that he still had it, that he was surprised when he'd been able to find it. But we've spent hours and hours and hours talking about it since. And it's pretty amazing, because that ticket stub sat in a box for two decades - once it let my dad into a stadium to see a baseball game, and then later, it let me into my dad's world, into his past, to learn about the man who taught me to love a game so passionately that it shaped nearly every aspect of my life. — Tucker Elliot

They say you can do honest, sincere work for decades, but you're given in general a 10-year period when what you do touches the zeitgeist - when you're relevant. And I'm aware of that, and I don't want my time to go by. — Alexander Payne

It is astonishing and a little sad to realize how many discoveries, how many advancements, have been delayed for years, for decades, not because the information was unavailable but because of sheer cowardice, fear of being laughed at, of being ostracized by one's colleagues. — Hanya Yanagihara

Kortchnoi's heritage is many-faceted - over the decades he has several times corrected and changed his style. But the main thing has invariably remained his search for chess truth. — Garry Kasparov

Nothing evades our attention as persistently as that which we take for granted ... the decades roll on without even a suggestion that perhaps the whole matter must be rethought — Marion Brady

The justification I hear more often than any other for leaving the Bible behind is that "everyone knows" it is antiquated and full of scientific nonsense, if not blatant errors and contradictions. Amazingly, when I ask people to cite examples, many cannot bring to mind even one. Apparently, they base their opinion on hearsay and repeat a widespread misconception. Among those who do answer my question, one Bible portion draws more vigorous attack than all others combined: the first few chapters of Genesis. This attack opens a wonderful door of opportunity for me - and for every believer who knows something about the scientific discoveries of the past few decades. Instead of offering an excuse for disbelief and rejection, these chapters present some of the most persuasive evidences ever assembled for the supernatural authorship, accuracy, and authority of the Bible. — Hugh Ross

Some people take months, years, maybe even decades, during which they aren't sure whether they're on the outside of Christian faith looking in, or on the inside looking around to see if it's real.
As with ordinary waking up, there are many people who are somewhere in between. But the point is that there's such a thing as being asleep, and there's such a thing as being awake. And it's important to tell the difference, and to be sure you're awake by the time you have to be up and ready for action, whatever that action may be. — N. T. Wright

During three decades, along all the highways of my youth, Frank had always been there for me. — Sammy Davis Jr.

A US firm with a large "government affairs" division dedicated to lobbying politicians in Washington, a Russian company founded by an oligarch with personal friendships in the Kremlin, and an Indian company finding its way through the tangle of decades-old licensing and bureaucratic requirements face drastically different regulatory environments from one another, let alone from a start-up seeking to enter an industry for the first time. — Moises Naim

I cannot deal with obscurity for more than a few decades before I get the worst ache in my chest. — Thomm Quackenbush

Crimes of the century differ from the garden variety of murders. They involve wealth, celebrity and powerful attorneys, and live on for decades after the verdict has been rendered. — Armand Deutsch

The campaign of anti-Islamic slander was so successful that to this day some textbooks in European and American schools refer to Muhammad as having epilepsy, the Qur'an as being copied from Bible, Muslim armies forcing conversions on people (by the sword), and Islam as being against science and learning. All of these are quite untrue, and enlightened Western authors from Arnold Toynbee and Bertrand Russell to Yvonne Haddad and John Esposito have been dispelling these myths on book after book for decades; nevertheless, the message hasn't reached the masses, who still believe numerous myths concerning Islam. — Yahiya Emerick

Companies like GE and Procter & Gamble have been in business for a long time. Over decades or a century you're bound to figure out a management structure that works. — Barry Diller

I am not saying I will vote against John Ashcroft because he is pro-life, .. But let me say if someone was nominated for attorney general who was vehemently pro choice
who in his or her career spent decades trying to find ways to expand the law abortion at nine months would be perfectly legal
wouldn't you be more upset and raise more of a voice than against a nominee who was simply pro-choice?. — Charles Schumer

The thing that most haunted me that day, however ... was the fact that these things had - apparently - actually occurred ... For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you've seen that truth - really seen it - you can't look away. — Elizabeth Kostova

Watching 'Girls,' it was really angering for me at first, because I really had spent decades hiding unlikable, unattractive Jewish girls in likable, attractive, non-Jewish actors and characters. — Jill Soloway

This is the most historic moment in Supreme Court history in our lifetime, no question about it. These are justices who are going to serve for decades. — Jay Alan Sekulow

Murder was deeply human. A person was killed and a person killed. And what powered the final thrust wasn't a whim, wasn't an event. It was an emotion. Something once healthy and human had become wretched and bloated and finally buried. But not put to rest. It lay there, often for decades, feeding on itself, growing and gnawing, grim and full of grievance. Until it finally broke free of all human restraint. Not conscience, not fear, not social convention could contain it. When that happened, all hell broke loose. And a man became a monster. — Louise Penny

Conservatives were griping for decades about liberal media and nobody paid attention. Now, all of a sudden, one news channel has gotten a whole new community of people freaked out. — Michael K. Powell

It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of the intoxicating existence we've been endowed with. But what's life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be , is every bit as strong as ours-arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don't. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment's additions existence. Life, in short just wants to be. — Bill Bryson

Americans whisper the word Alzheimer's because their government whispers the word Alzheimer's. And although a whisper is better than the silence that the Alzheimer's community has been facing for decades, it's still not enough. It needs to be yelled and screamed to the point that it finally gets the attention and the funding that it deserves and needs. — Seth Rogen

Absent scandal, a federal judge can serve for decades on the bench, underscoring the importance of appointing judges who have a proper understanding of their constitutional role. — Paul Weyrich

The problem with water, though, is that the shortfalls don't show up until the very end. You can go on pumping unsustainably until the day you run out. Then all you have is the recharge flow, which comes from precipitation. This is not decades away, this is years away. We're already seeing huge shortages in China, where the Yellow River runs dry for part of each year. The Yellow River is the cradle of Chinese civilization. It first failed to reach the sea in 1972, and since 1985 it's run dry for part of each year. For 1997 it was dry for 226 days. — Lester R. Brown

We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before. — Barack Obama

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

There has been corruption in the Belgian civil service and at government level for decades. The Royal family do what they can to hold things together, and they don't do a bad job. — Nicholas Royle

The human population is too large, and the earth too small, to sustain us in the ways our ancestors lived. Most of the land that is good for farming is already being farmed. Yet 80 million more humans are being added to the population each year. The challenge of the coming decades is to limit the destructive effects of agriculture even as we continue to coax ever more food from the earth. — Nina V. Fedoroff

Your daughter would like to know if you are still going insane, dear." Paw considered this. "I've been married to your mother for over two decades. You might allow me certain dispensation for eccentricity. — Gail Carriger

Over the course of six decades, some six million black southerners left the land of their forefathers and fanned out across the country for an uncertain existence in nearly every other corner of America. The Great Migration would become a turning point in history. It would transform urban America and recast the social and political order of every city it touched. It would force the South to search its soul and finally to lay aside a feudal caste system. It grew out of the unmet promises made after the Civil War and, through the sheer weight of it, helped push the country toward the civil rights revolutions of the 1960s. — Isabel Wilkerson

You may have heard that America doesn't have enough scientists and is in danger of "falling behind" (whatever that means) because of it. Tell this to an academic scientist and watch her laugh. For the last thirty years, the amount of the U.S. annual budget that goes to non-defense related research has been frozen. From a purely budgetary perspective, we don't have too few scientists, we've got far too many, and we keep graduating more each year. America may say that it values science, but it sure as hell doesn't want to pay for it. Within environmental science in particular, we see the crippling effects that come from having been resource-hobbled for decades: degrading farmland, species extinction, progressive deforestation... The list goes on and on. — Hope Jahren

NAEP data show beyond question that test scores in reading and math have improved for almost every group of students over the past two decades; slowly and steadily in the case of reading, dramatically in the case of mathematics. Students know more and can do more in these two basic skills subjects now than they could twenty or forty years ago... So the next time you hear someone say that the system is "broken," that American students aren't as well educated as they used to be, that our schools are failing, tell that person the facts. — Diane Ravitch

The question of crime is one of concern to everybody. But the position is that the security forces in our country for the last four decades did not concentrate on suppressing crime. Their main objective was to suppress, to crush political activity. And in the process, crime grew to unacceptable proportions. And criminals were able to form powerful syndicates, and they virtually took over the control of the life of the community in certain areas. — Nelson Mandela

On Jan. 30, millions of Iraqis will cast ballots in the country's first fair and free election in decades, marking continued progress in Iraq's transition toward a country built on the pillars of democracy and freedom for all. — Jim Gerlach

Several years ago, I was creating a Christmas present for the family, a self-published cookbook featuring recipes my grandmother had collected and created over decades. While interviewing her for the biographical section, she began to talk about her courtship with my late grandfather. — Kristina McMorris

It wasn't the first time he'd run for his life. And it most likely would
not be the last. In the past few decades, though, he'd mostly run from
angry fathers who'd found him where they felt he should not be. Or he'd
run from town guards - sent by angry fathers who'd found him where they
felt he should not be. — G.A. Aiken

Though Ailes had spent more than four decades in Washington, D.C., and New York City, he still saw himself as a scrapper from a small town in a flyover state who'd had to fight for everything he had. When asked by one reporter what his antagonists thought of him, he replied, "I can pretty much pick the words for you: paranoid, right-wing, fat. — Gabriel Sherman

No matter how deeply disturbing the thought of using the environment to manipulate behavior for national advantages to some, the technology permitting such use will very probably develop within the next few decades. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I do think that some of us began to realize that this was going to be a long struggle that was going to go on for decades, and you'd have to knuckle down. A lot of people in our generation did that. They didn't drop out and run away. — Julian Bond

It had been a beautiful day for an outdoor ceremony, with the kind of lucid weather she hoped to have at her own funeral. She thought often of her own death, but without fear, loss having been her only belonging in this life. For years, acceptance had been her only means of survival. She knew that no matter how miserable or wretched life became, all she could do with her meek piece of time was sustain it. Decades of guilt, lost faith, the betrayal by those few people she'd let herself love - it was worth enduring these things, if only for the gift of a single, exalted moment. And such moments happened, even frequently, in the lives of people wise enough to see them. — Esi Edugyan

As the soap slid through sparse curls and into the cleft between her thighs, ribbons of unexpected sensation stirred from her most intimate flesh and unfurled across the expanse of her skin. Her mouth dropped open, but she caught the moan before it escaped.
Their gazes collided, the flames in his eyes darkened as his pupils dilated.
He knew. Though he could see nothing, he knew exactly where her fingers drifted, and precisely where the soap slicked over already moistened skin.
Despite her mortification, Farah also marveled. She'd been bathing for almost three decades and, while she'd found a tremor of pleasure whilst lingering here, it had never been so achingly insistent, so full of demand and promise.
That demand, those promises, were mirrored in the stare of Dorian Blackwell. — Kerrigan Byrne

But my subconscious mind
the part I've heard writers call the lizard brain
could and did: it told me to reach for Anne Lamott or Edith Wharton or Calvin Trillin instead. And if I've learned one thing in my decades on earth, it's this: Don't argue with your lizard brain; it knows you better than you know yourself. — Sara Nelson

Oh, maybe a little treasure for the more rabid Incunks, the collectors and the academics who maintained their positions in large part by examining the literary equivalent of navel-lint in each other's abstruse journals; ambitious, overeducated goofs who had lost touch with what books and reading were actually about and could be content to go on spinning straw into footnoted fool's gold for decades on end. — Stephen King

Critical discussions of Western colonialism and imperialism and of what the term postcolonialism could mean, require, and enable first became acceptable in literature and cultural studies departments in the United States some three decades ago. Yet it has been much harder to create such discussions of sciences and technologies. Especially resistant are those departments where the West's scientific rationality and technical expertise have long been lovingly explained and "served up" for use in corporate and nationalist policies: sociology, philosophy, economics, and international relations, as well as the natural sciences themselves. — Sandra G. Harding

If the invention of derivatives was the financial world's modernist dawn, the current crisis is unsettlingly like the birth of postmodernism. For anyone who studied literature in college in the past few decades, there is a weird familiarity about the current crisis: value, in the realm of finance capital, parallels the elusive nature of meaning in deconstrucitonism. According to Jacques Derrida, the doyen of the school, meaning can never be precisely located; instead, it is always 'deferred,' moved elsewhere, located in other meanings, which refer and defer to other meanings - a snake permanently and necessarily eating its own tail. This process is fluid and constant, but at moments the perpetual process of deferral stalls and collapses in on itself. Derrida called this moment an 'aporia,' from a Greek term meaning 'impasse.' There is something both amusing and appalling about seeing his theories acted out in the world markets to such cataclysmic effect. — John Lanchester

For decades, NRDC has created and supported policies that will ultimately end our reliance on fossil fuels. — Frances Beinecke

You know what? This isn't about your feelings. A human life, with all its joys and all its pains, adding up over the course of decades, is worth far more than your brain's feelings of comfort or discomfort with a plan. Does computing the expected utility feel too cold-blooded for your taste? Well, that feeling isn't even a feather in the scales, when a life is at stake. Just shut up and multiply. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

I have had affairs that lasted decades and others that lasted for hours. I have loved princesses and peasants. And I suppose they loved me, each in their way. — Erin Morgenstern

From the outset, MoMA followed the Bauhaus's strict prohibition against design that even hinted at the decorative, a prejudice that skewed the pioneering museum's view of Modernism for decades. — Martin Filler

The old exhortations to nationalist fervor and jingoist pride have begun to lose their appeal. Perhaps because of rising standards of living, children are being treated better worldwide. In only a few decades, sweeping global changes have begun to move in precisely the directions needed for human survival. A new consciousness is developing which recognizes that we are one species. — Carl Sagan

For the first few hundred years of American history, food preparation was generally approached in a no-nonsense manner. Even as late as twenty-five years ago, the general attitude was that "feeding your face" was all right, but to make too much fuss about it was somehow decadent. In the past two decades, of course, the trend has reversed itself so sharply that earlier misgivings about gastronomic excesses seem almost to have been justified. Now we have "foodies" and wine freaks who take the pleasures of the palate as seriously as if they were rites in a brand-new religion. Gourmet — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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

Take a moment and think of something small but significant that you've wanted for decades. Dream about it. Wish for it. Let the dreaming and wishing sink deeply into your being. Add some memories of disappointment just for a little flavor. At some point, over time, a wish can become too important, can become much bigger as a dream than it ever had a right to be. — Virginia M. Sanders

The great thing about true best friends is that when you go MIA for a few months, they inquire but they don't press. Best friends know the power of infatuation but also how quickly it dissipates. You just have to wait it out. And then afterward, tease them about it for decades. — Mindy Kaling