Imminent Quotes & Sayings

Where one, without fault is placed under circumstances sufficient to excite the fears of it reasonable man that another designs to commit it felony, or some great bodily injury upon him, and to afford grounds for reasonable belief that there is imminent clanger of the accomplishment of his design, lie may, acting under these fears alone, slay his assailant and be justified by the appearances. And as where the attack is sudden and the danger inuninent, lie may increase his peril by retreat; so situated, he may stand his ground ... and .slay his aggressor, even if it he proved lie might more easily have gained by Jli~rht. — Richard Maxwell Brown

Democracy tends to ignore, even deny, threats to its existence because it loathes doing what is needed to counter them," explained Revel. "It awakens only when the danger becomes deadly, imminent, and evident. By then, either there is too little time left for it to save itself, or the price of survival has become crushingly high. — Jean Francois Revel

You dreamed like all mothers do.
Until he began to speak aloud,
Your boy,
calling for justice in the market place,
Demanding integrity and fair play
in the courts and halls of business.
Declaring the Realm of God
Imminent,
Manifest . . .
Jesus leapt into the swelling crowds
like an axe into wood,
Uncompromising and unrelenting
in his passionate call
for peace and justice.
Jesus, your boy,
causing havoc in public,
critiquing and condemning
the status quo,
breaking rule after rule . . .
And with every speech,
with every act of defiance,
with every call to liberation,
with every amazing deed,
Your dreams of peace and liberation,
Your dreams of a secure old age,
Your dreams of grandchildren--
Evaporated. — Edwina Gateley

There seems to be something poetically that doesn't work or is limiting when you call God 'God' in a poem. When I tried to be honest with myself in my relationship with God, Christ is, on the one hand, completely dark, he's transcendent and unknown. On the other hand, he is completely imminent and completely knowable as Jesus. Our tradition speaks of him in both ways as transcendent but also as a lover who comes to us, and the two word 'Dark One' seem to me to contain both things, the transcendence and otherness of Christ, but also like a kind of dark lover who comes to us. — Kevin Hart

In truth, if it isn't to save your life when it's in imminent danger, someone yelling at you is just plain wrong. The same is true for ranting or bitching. The same goes double for anything even close to manhandling. — Cathy Burnham Martin

If I can't joke about imminent death, then I might as well just resign. — James A. Owen

Risk is relative. And relative to the imminent planetary 'game over' neon sign that's starting to flicker above our children's heads, just as they are preparing for a full life ahead ... now that's what you call risk! — Dave Hampton

Joe hid his grin. "A little grab-ass is not accosting." At the worst of times, Luna could amuse him. And now he finally had her where he wanted her.
...
Her mesmerizing eyes shone with annoyance and disbelief. "I barely knew you, Joe. I brought you a sandwich, and half a minute later you had your hands all over me."
Despite his aches and pains, the memory warmed Joe. Locking onto her gaze, he said in his defense, "You have that kind of bottom, honey. All round and soft."
Her color deepened. "Of all the stupid, sexist
"
"It's irresistible," Joe insisted, and meant it. "It begs for a man's hands. It
" There looked to be an explosion imminent, so Joe wisely let that go for now and instead distracted her. "And for your information, no. I didn't get beat up by a woman." He snorted. "How absurd is that?"
"I dunno." Her body vibrated with tension. "I'm ready to beat you up."
-Joe and Luna — Lori Foster

Mutual lack of understanding carries the threat of imminent and violent destruction. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Global warming is not a threat. It's not a real threat. It's not a credible threat. It's not an imminent threat. ISIS is. — Eric Bolling

The Ass, the Fox, and the Lion THE ASS and the Fox, having entered into partnership together for their mutual protection, went out into the forest to hunt. They had not proceeded far when they met a Lion. The Fox, seeing imminent danger, approached the Lion and promised to contrive for him the capture of the Ass if the Lion would pledge his word not to harm the Fox. Then, upon assuring the Ass that he would not be injured, the Fox led him to a deep pit and arranged that he should fall into it. The Lion, seeing that the Ass was secured, immediately clutched the Fox, and attacked the Ass at his leisure. — Aesop

At that moment, in the temple of her lovers' tangled limbs, Lea felt the presence of the Divine close by, immanent and imminent - everywhere and everywhen - and it was a sublime feeling, one that made her feel infinitely powerful and infinitely small, both at the same time.

A good fuck can make even an agnostic see God - a fact that explained Lea's parents' fascination with Tantra, something about which Lea thought as little as possible. — K.D. West

Those who romanticize war often like to think of it, at least in areas of mortal peril, as nothing but "guts and glory." Those who are inclined to pacifism, by contrast, often think of it as an unbroken sequence of horrors. Actually, however, people in wartime still fall in love, do the laundry, worry about pimples, drink beer, and do most of the same things that they do in times of peace. The patterns of daily life may be mundane, but they are remarkably tenacious.
But, while people in wartime still go about their daily routines, the prospect of imminent death can give even quotidian chores a heightened intensity. When the first bombs were dropped on London in autumn of 1940, the population bore adversity better than almost anybody had expected. The danger was mixed with excitement, and the terror had a sort of apocalyptic magnificence. — Boria Sax

I was adrift in a sea of questions and if answers were lifeboats, I was in imminent danger of drowning. — Karen Marie Moning

Profound changes are imminent in the ancient craft of the beautiful. — Jason Lazarus

Dr. Peter Levine, who has worked with trauma survivors for twenty-five years, says the single most important factor he has learned in uncovering the mystery of human trauma is what happens during and after the freezing response. He describes an impala being chased by a cheetah. The second the cheetah pounces on the young impala, the animal goes limp. The impala isn't playing dead, she has "instinctively entered an altered state of consciousness, shared by all mammals when death appears imminent." (Levine and Frederick, Waking the Tiger, p. 16) The impala becomes instantly immobile. However, if the impala escapes, what she does immediately thereafter is vitally important. She shakes and quivers every part of her body, clearing the traumatic energy she has accumulated. — Marilyn Van Derbur

But my focus would have to be on my imminent role, intimately involved with the when and how of death - the grave digger with the forceps. Not — Paul Kalanithi

Do you know what the worst thing about literature is? . What? I said. That you end up being friends with writers. And friendship, treasure though it may be, destroys your critical sense. Once, said Don Pancracio, Monteforte Toledo dropped this riddle in my lap: a poet is lost in a city on the verge of collapse, with no money, or friends, or anyone to turn to. And of course, he neither wants nor plans to turn to anyone. For several days he roams the city and the country, eating nothing, or eating scraps. He's even stopped writing. Or he writes in his head: in other words, he hallucinates. All signs point to an imminent death. His drastic disappearance foreshadows it. And yet the poet doesn't die. — Roberto Bolano

Democrats are channeling their frustration with America's imminent military victory in Afghanistan into hysterical opposition to reasonable national security measures at home. (Incidentally, this ought to prove once and for all what a bunch of paper tigers the Russians are. What were they doing over there for 10 years? It hasn't taken us 10 weeks.) — Ann Coulter

But I regret to inform you that you are probably not dying'
'As you will.' I take a swig from the bottle of brandy, my teeth chattering against it. I don't have the energy to argue; I must save my strength for my imminent demise. — Janet Mullany

One can know everything and still be unable to accept the fact that sex and murder are fused in the male consciousness, so that the one without the imminent possibly of the other is unthinkable and impossible. — Andrea Dworkin

Genius is mainly an affair of energy, and poetry is mainly an affair of genius; therefore a nation whose spirit is characterized by energy may well be imminent in poetry - and we have Shakespeare. — Matthew Arnold

Thank God for imminent doomsday. — Jim Butcher

It was nice standing out in the darkness, in the damp grass, with spring coming on and a feeling in my heart of imminent disaster. — Michael Chabon

The only true revolutionary is the one who affects a lifestyle which takes the imminent destruction of the entire species as a basic premise. — Marco Vassi

The idea of full dress for preparation for a battle comes not from a belief that it will add to the fighting ability. The preparation is for death, in case that should be the result of conflict. Every Indian wants to look his best when he goes to meet the great Spirit, so the dressing up is done whether in imminent danger is an oncoming battle or a sickness or injury at times of peace. — Wooden Leg

Faced with our imminent extinction, Tom Laughlin believes, all assumptions are called into question. — Steven Pressfield

The Democrats current crudeness is a function of their desperation, and the imminent ratification of Howard Dean, the least charming presidential candidate in recent memory, as their party chairman only serves to punctuate the problem. — Joe Klein

There being an imminent danger for the faith, prelates must be questioned, even publicly, by their subjects. — Thomas Aquinas

Had he known his death was imminent, he might have gone somewhere else. Instead, he did what we all do. He went about his dull routine as if all the days in the world were still to come. — Mitch Albom

The funny thing about facing imminent death is that it really snaps everything else into perspective. — James Patterson

Because pessimism needs to counter that argument in order to be at all persuasive, a recurring theme in pessimistic theories throughout history has been that an exceptionally dangerous moment is imminent. — David Deutsch

Imminent GM bankruptcy was always fiction, created by Wall Street and the media. — Robert Lutz

A just fear of an imminent danger, though be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war. — Francis Bacon

These days the couple coexisted uneasily in an edgy state where both knew a separation was inevitable and imminent but neither was brave enough to say so. They were in the almost-terminal stage where trivial things the partner does are keenly noticed and continuously resented; how they wipe the kitchen counters after a meal, the messy state of the bathroom after their shower, the toilet seat up, the toilet seat down. Things routinely ignored before, much less cared about, now glimmered like they were Day-Glo purple, or stunk like milk gone bad. — Jonathan Carroll

President Bush is manufacturing a crisis by suggesting that Social Security is in imminent danger. It is not. — Richard Neal

The future though imminent is obscure. — Winston Churchill

And so the afternoon stretched on, and Ezbon toasted their imminent defeat to the dregs. — C.N. Faust

The happiest days of our lives [are] days such as this when one's work [begins] to reach fruition and to assume the contours of its imminent completion.

(A. Herzbruch, in A Murder at Dragon Bay) — Steven William Lawrie

Upon reaching the preserve, everyone knew that the explanation of this incident was dreadfully imminent. With parents already on edge, the looming task of crafting a story out of thin air was one that was not only sickening, but would place a larger wedge between father and son. — K.N. Smith

The hero acts alone, without encouragement, relying solely on conviction and his own inner resources. Shame does not discourage him; neither does obloquy. Indifferent to approval, reputation, wealth, or love, he cherishes only his personal sense of honor, which he permits no one else to judge.[ ... ] Guided by an inner gyroscope, he pursues his vision single-mindedly, undiscouraged by rejections, defeat, or even the prospect of imminent death. — William Manchester

When our life is a continuous trial, the moments of respite seem only to substitute the heaviness of dread for the heaviness of actual suffering; the curtain of cloud seems parted an instant only that we may measure all its horror as it hangs low, black, and imminent, in contrast with the transient brightness; the waterdrops that visit the parched lips in the desert bear with them only the keen imagination of thirst. — George Eliot

Fear releases power. Man might be more tolerable, less fractious and smug, if he had more to fear. I do not mean fear of the intangible, the suffocation of the introvert, but physical fear, cold sweating fear for one's life, fear of the unseen menacing beast, imminent, bristly, tusked and terrible, ravening for one's own hot saline blood. — J.A. Baker

He (Aneurin Bevan) enjoys prophesying the imminent fall of the capitalist system, and is prepared to play a part, any part, in its burial, except that of mute. — Harold Macmillan

At 2:26 AM on 3 June 1980, Colonel William Odom of the Strategic Air Command alerted National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski that the US nuclear warning system had detected an imminent 220-missile nuclear attack on the US. Shortly thereafter, the automated system revised its projection from 220 missiles to an all-out attack of 2200 missiles. Just before Brzezinski was about to wake up President Carter to authorize a counterattack, he was told that the 'attack' was an illusion caused by 'a computer error in the system'. — Stansfield Turner

I don't like being called a denier because deniers don't believe in facts. There are no facts linking the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide with imminent catastrophic global warming there are only predictions based on complex computer models. — David Bellamy

He seemed to realize she was staring at him, because the cursing stopped. "You cut me," he said. His voice was pleasant. British. Very ordinary. He looked at his hand with critcal interest. "It might be fatal."
Tessa looked at him with wide eyes. "Are you the Magister?"
He tilted his hand to the side. Blood ran down it, spattering the floor. "Dear me, massive blood loss. Death could be imminent. — Cassandra Clare

Too bad Justice refused to let him toss live grenades to the side of the course. That would add motivation. He knew from personal experience. His personal best time for a quarter-mile run had been in Africa - while being chased by an angry rhino. Imminent death made for a great workout. — Susan Mallery

But choosing to lovingly care for her was like steering a plane into a mountain as gently as possible. The crash is imminent; it's how you spend your time on the way down that counts. — Jamie Ford

Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense. Our threat is from the insidious forces working from within which have already so drastically altered the character of our free institutions - those institutions we proudly called the American way of life. — Douglas MacArthur

We insist no one be compelled to take antipsychotic drugs until he becomes so deranged that he is in 'imminent danger' and a judge has to intervene to save his life. If we really believed that forced treatment was an injustice and forced medication was cruel, then why would we allow a judge to impose it as a last resort to save a life? — Pete Earley

All this national decay, all this weakening of the state, this obviously imminent subjection of Judah to Babylon, were, it seemed to Jeremiah, Yahveh's hand laid upon the Jews in punishment for their sins. — Will Durant

The conflict is an old one. George Washington and other followers of the Enlightenment Movement wrote of their belief in an imminent maturity of humankind. The ancient and cruel feudal ways were splitting asunder at last; therefore, how could truth and freedom not prevail? In fact, the Enlightenment changed humanity forever. Yet its followers forgot something important
that each generation is invaded by a new wave of barbarians ... its children. Just as Washington, Franklin, and their peers took joy in toppling the tyranny of Church and King, so the youths of the Romantic Movement thrived on jeering the lofty ideals of their predecessors. — David Brin

Dr. Lawrence Burton ... in fighting cancer.( Many of his patients are now living normal lives after being told there was nothing more the conventional treatments could do for them, and that death was imminent ... Why are Americans being forced to go off shore for treatment for cancer from an American doctor and for a program that was developed in America? — Larry McDonald

Unlike some, I don't claim to hold the mystic key to the future. But judging from past events, it seems to me that those who want to prophesy the imminent end of America's unique global role have a harder case to make than those who think we will limp on for a while, making a mess of things as usual. — Walter Russell Mead

I watch because of that look of acceptance in the animal's eyes. Absurdly, I imagine the animal understands. I imagined the animal sees that its imminent demise is for a higher purpose. — Khaled Hosseini

National Defense A strong USA defense brought down the Soviet Union. It was Ronald Reagan - first in a speech at Notre Dame University in May 1981, then his 'Evil Empire' speech of March 1983 - who most eloquently declared communism's imminent demise. Reagan was right. And even Soviet officials attribute Ronald Reagan's rhetoric and foreign policy to bringing down that 'evil empire.' By Christmas Day, 1990, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Liberals wished it were other things. — Rush Limbaugh

Stupid dire warnings of imminent doom.
They always put me in a bad mood. — Clinton Boomer

The Army's new pitch was simple. Good pay, good benefits, a manageable amount of adventure ... but don't worry, we're not looking to pick fights these days. For a country that had paid so dear a price for its recent military buccaneering, the message was comforting. We still had the largest and most technologically advanced standing army in the world, the most nuclear weapons, the best and most powerful conventional weapons systems, the biggest navy. At the same time, to the average recruit the promise wasn't some imminent and dangerous combat deployment; it was 288 bucks a month (every month), training, travel, and experience. Selling the post-Vietnam military as a career choice meant selling the idea of peacetime service. It meant selling the idea of peacetime. Barf. — Rachel Maddow

He was succeeded on the throne by RAGNAR. At this time Fro (Frey?), the King of Sweden, after slaying Siward, the King of the Norwegians, put the wives of Siward's kinsfolk in bonds in a brothel, and delivered them to public outrage. When Ragnar heard of this, he went to Norway to avenge his grandfather. As he came, many of the matrons, who had either suffered insult to their persons or feared imminent peril to their chastity, hastened eagerly to his camp in male attire, declaring that they would prefer death to outrage. Nor did Ragnar, who was to punish this reproach upon the women, scorn to use against the author of the infamy the help of those whose shame he had come to avenge. Among them was Ladgerda, a skilled amazon, who, though a maiden, had the courage of a man, and fought in front among the bravest with her hair loose over her shoulders. All-marvelled at her matchless deeds, for her locks flying down her back betrayed that she was a woman. — Saxo Grammaticus

I think Matt Yglesias is wrong to declare that the world of 'This Town' is dying, unless he thinks publicly financed elections, strict lobbying bans and Scandinavian-style wealth distribution are imminent. — Alex Pareene

Ability to Function Despite Imminent Catastrophe. — Mary Roach

I can only hope that, upon learning of my imminent execution, Good Samaritans in Colorado will be moved to ship me a plump love apple from their backyard patch - and should they happen to be friendly with Hunter S. Thompson, perhaps persuade him to inject it with a little something beforehand. Hunter will know just what I mean, and trust me, it won't affect the taste of the tomato.*
*When I wrote those lines, Thompson was alive and blooming. Now, with his sad demise, still more color has faded out of the American scene. Where are the men today whose lives are not beige; where are the writers whose style is not gray? — Tom Robbins

Within the last fifty years, the extraordinary growth of every department of physical science has spread among us mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a character that a new ecdysis seems imminent. — Thomas Huxley

In no system which shows mental characteristics can any part have unilateral control over the whole. In other words, the mental characteristics of the system are imminent, not in some part, but in the system as a whole. — Gregory Bateson

Now here is exactly the point, I am afraid, where multitudes of English people fail, and are in imminent danger of being lost for ever. They know that there is no forgiveness of sin excepting in Christ Jesus. They can tell you that there is no Saviour for sinners, no Redeemer, no Mediator, excepting Him who was born of the Virgin Mary, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, dead, and buried. But here they stop, and get no further! They never come to the point of actually laying hold on Christ by faith, and becoming one with Christ and Christ in them. They can say, He is a Saviour, but not 'my Saviour,' - a Redeemer, but not 'my Redeemer,' - a Priest, but not 'my Priest,' - an Advocate, but not 'my Advocate:' and so they live and die unforgiven! No wonder that Martin Luther said, Many are lost because they cannot use possessive pronouns. — J.C. Ryle

Within three hours of a disaster event there should be a recon damage assessment of the infrastructure and an educated guess as to the casualties and degree of imminent human peril. Then make the airdrops of supplies and personnel. Simultaneously, Seabees would be dropped in, with lights and generators, to begin rescue efforts. — Steven Van Zandt

Many spiritual seekers who say their wish is to awaken don't actually want what they believe they do. This becomes clear sometimes at the approach to the brink of what feels like a void, where the obliteration of the egoic self seems imminent. With a shocked recognition of what is being asked, the person will recoil. The scale of the loss-the dissolution of the familiar self-is beyond what was bargained for. — Jan Frazier

Felt my heartbeat falter, hesitate, then stumble awkwardly forward, tripping on the next beat, then the next, faster and faster until each one tumbled into the other like the drumroll of dominoes crashing together. Funny how time stands still when death is imminent. — Darynda Jones

The animals had filled the tidy new freight cars with the lingering smell of their sweat and waste, parasites infesting the cracks between the hoof-dented boards, the feeling of imminent slaughter staying with the train forever. Soon — Ian Kharitonov

There was no point moping around when you faced imminent death. — Rick Riordan

Taking my faltering as a sign of imminent emotional breakdown. — Andrea Cremer

Savor the imminent weirdness of the day. — Charles Baxter

He was determined to save her, to be her hero, to give her a reason why the gods had seen fit to place him inside her visions. Gods, he wanted to rescue her. After all, she had rescued him; she had become his heroine a long time ago, before his death became imminent. — Madison Thorne Grey

Most believers aren't in imminent danger of ruining their lives. They're facing a danger that's far greater: wasting them. — Steven Furtick

Loud peace propaganda makes war seem imminent. — D.H. Lawrence

Poor friend and learned physician, my sensitive and gentle companion, instead of treating and curing the sick you yourself have fallen beneath the yoke of death, and now belong to death's kingdom. For many months you have witnessed such suffering and horror as the human mind can scarcely conceive, as he who sees cannot believe. Perhaps it is for the best that your nerves have betrayed you, that a benevolent veil of forgetfulness has fallen upon your mind. Now, at least, you need not fret or worry about what the future may hold in store for you. — Miklos Nyiszli

The framers understood that the president, as the head of our armed forces, must defend the nation from imminent threat. But when the mission shifts from defense to offense, congressional approval is essential. — Tim Kaine

He leaned towards me, and I did what any reasonable person would do when facing imminent death by being eaten alive. I screamed. — Donald G. Firesmith

We still live with this unbelievable threat over our heads of nuclear war. I mean, are we stupid? Do we think that the nuclear threat has gone, that the nuclear destruction of the planet is not imminent? It's a delusion to think it's gone away. — Kevin Costner

I'm familiar with that feeling of silence that comes with a very imminent catastrophe, when you know you have absolutely no control over a situation. — Dave Matthews

I woke up horribly early the next morning to the sound of some sadistic bastard operating an electric hedge-trimmer just outside the window. I lay for a while hoping this prat would be struck by lightning or washed away in a bizarre flash flood. Neither happened, so I groaned and rolled out of bed.
My skull had shrunk so that my brain was in imminent danger of being squeezed out of my ears, my teeth seemed to be covered in wool and my tongue was far too big for my mouth. — Danielle Hawkins

In the zone of perdition where my youth went as if to complete its education, one would have said that the portents of an imminent collapse of the whole edifice of civilization had made an appointment. — Guy Debord

Each person in the group said something except for me. My silence became noticed. About halfway through the meeting I started to think, I've got to talk. Today, I've got to talk. Fear racked me so bad that sweat ran down my sides. I thought, After the curly-haired woman stops talking I'll raise my hand. A man with a cocky smile told the curly woman that her story was nothing compared to his, he'd been passed out cold from heroin and God knows what, and I wanted to tell him to quit glorifying hinself. I was just about to say the words, a few faces turned toward me as if they could sense my imminent speech, when a man across the circle interrupted.
The opportunity passed; what I wanted to say wouldn't fit now. I tilted on the back two legs of the chair and waited for my desire to speak and be noticed and be part of the group to travel back through my nervous system. Up the synapses condemnation rushed: Why couldn't I spit something out like a normal person? — Daphne Scholinski

If we sip the wine, we find dreams coming upon us out of the imminent night — D.H. Lawrence

George W. Bush and Tony Blair had to convince the world that Saddam Hussein represented an imminent threat. Tony Blair lied when he claimed that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes. — Bianca Jagger

There are no moments more painful for a parent than those in which you contemplate your child's perfect innocence of some imminent pain, misfortune, or sorrow. That innocence (like every kind of innocence children have) is rooted in their trust of you, one that you will shortly be obliged to betray; whether it is fair or not, whether you can help it or not, you are always the ultimate guarantor or destroyer of that innocence. — Michael Chabon

Personal disintegration remains always an imminent danger. — Christopher Lasch

Going with the crowd only guarantees imminent disappointment — Garrett McCoy

She felt the blazing heat of his mouth cover her, his tongue searching the tender flesh, arrowing to the sensitive bud where her desire centered. Her knees weakened, and she would have collapsed had his hands not cupped beneath her buttocks, gripping and steadying her. Moaning, she strained against the sliding, tormenting delight of his tongue, until she began to stiffen at the imminent approach of climax. — Lisa Kleypas

I don't mean to imply that we are in imminent danger of being wiped off the face of the earth - at least, not on account of global warming. But climate change does confront us with profound new realities. We face these new realities as a nation, as members of the world community, as consumers, as producers, and as investors. And unless we do a better job of adjusting to these new realities, we will pay a heavy price. We may not suffer the fate of the dinosaurs. But there will be a toll on our environment and on our economy, and the toll will rise higher with each new generation. — Eileen Claussen

Fang looked at me, hope in his eyes, and I smirked at him. I save the huge emotional kissy-face for imminent death scenes. This probably didn't qualify. — James Patterson

I was as afraid as the next man in my time and maybe more so. But with the years, fear had come to be regarded as a form of stupidity to be classed with overdrafts, acquiring a venereal disease or eating candies. Fear is a child's vice and while I loved to feel it approach, as one does with any vice, it was not for grown men and the only thing to be afraid of was the presence of true and imminent danger in a form that you should be aware of and not be a fool if you were responsible for others. — Ernest Hemingway,

Now, for the moment, we are safe. The only kind of international violence that worries most people in the developed countries is terrorism: from imminent heart attack to a bad case of hangnail in fifteen years flat. We are very lucky people
but we need to use the time we have been granted wisely, because total war is only sleeping. All the major states are still organized for war, and all that is needed for the world to slide back into a nuclear confrontation is a twist of the kaleidoscope that shifts international relations into a new pattern of rival alliances. — Gwynne Dyer

As he began to withdraw from them, it became clear to Grenouille for the first time that for eighteen years their compacted human effluvium had oppressed him like air heavy with an imminent thunderstorm. Until now he had thought that it was the world in general he had wanted to squirm away from. But it was not the world, it was the people in it. You could live, so it seemed, in this world, in this world devoid of humanity. On — Patrick Suskind

What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wrong way is also a possible and a natural way, nay, more, a menacing and an imminent way? And what sense can there be in condemning ourselves for taking the wrong way, unless we need have done nothing of the sort, unless the right way was open to us as well? I cannot understand the willingness to act, no matter how we feel, without the belief that acts are really good and bad. — William James

With Albright at the helm of the State Department, Osama bin Laden ran wild throughout the Middle East, the North Koreans began feverishly building nukes under her nose, and we staged a pre-emptive attack solely for purposes of regime change based on false information presented to the American people by Albright about a world leader who was not an imminent threat to the United States. Slobodan Milosevic wasn't even a latent, long-term, hypothetical threat. — Ann Coulter

It is what we see when we imagine what the afterlife must be like: our happiest triumphs, our most sincere moments, stolen from the seam of our lives, a respite just before the onset of imminent tragedy. — Joe Meno

And because when you die, the world dies, too, at least for you, they assume the world will die for everybody. It's a failure of imagination, in a way - an inability to conceive of the universe without you in it. That's why old people get apocalyptic: they're facing apocalypse, and that part, the private apocalypse, is real. So the closer their personal oblivion gets, the more certain geriatrics project impending doom on their surroundings. Also, there's almost a spitefulness, sometimes. I swear, for some of these bilious Chicken Littles, imminent Armageddon isn't a fear but a fantasy. Like they want the entire planet to implode into a giant black hole. Because if they can't have their martinis on the porch anymore then nobody else should get to sip one, either. — Lionel Shriver

The currency of this world will be worthless at our death or at Christ's return, both of which are imminent. — Randy Alcorn