Quotes & Sayings About Interruptions

The room was filled with smoke, dry worn-out smoke retaining in it like a web the insectile cadavers of dry husks of words which had been spoken and should be gone, the breaths exhaled not to be breathed again. But the words went on, and in those brief interruptions between cigarettes the exhalations were rebreathed. — William Gaddis

The monotony of a long heroic poem may often be pleasantly relieved by judicious interruptions in the perfect succession of rhymes, just as the metre may sometimes be adorned with occasional triplets and Alexandrines. — H.P. Lovecraft

The shortest definition of religion: interruption. — Johann Baptist Metz

Anyone reading this book will take in as much information today as Shakespeare took in over a lifetime. Researchers in the new field of interruption science have found that it takes an average of twenty-five minutes to recover from a phone call. Yet such interruptions come every eleven minutes - which means we're never caught up with our lives. — Pico Iyer

Red remembered growing up in that house as heaven. There were enough children on Bouton Road to form two baseball teams, when they felt like it, and they spent all their free time playing out of doors - boys and girls together, little ones and big ones. Suppers were brief, pesky interruptions foisted on them by their mothers. They disappeared again till they were called in for bed, and then they came protesting, all sweaty-faced and hot with grass blades sticking to them, begging for just another half hour. "I bet I can still name every kid on the block," Red would tell his own children. But that was not so impressive, because most of those kids had stayed on in the neighborhood as grown-ups, or at least come back to it later after trying out other, lesser places. Red — Anne Tyler

For the third time since I began, my walk has been delayed. In the beginning, I had considered these stops on my journey as interruptions
but I'm coming to understand that perhaps these detours are my journey. No matter how much I, or the rest of humanity wishes otherwise, life is not lived in smooth, downhill expressways, but in the obscure, perilous trails and rocky back roads of life where we stumble and feel our way through the fog of the unknown. — Richard Paul Evans

Endings are not our destiny ... They are merely interruptions-temporary pauses that one day will seem small compared to the eternal joy awaiting the faithful. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

When Jesus was interrupted, He started where He was and helped those in need who were nearest to Him. There is always another mission "out there" - the next cause, the next city, or the next country that seems to be the most important mission we could pursue. Jesus illustrates that our greatest mission is often the person in front of us. — Dillon Burroughs

Our system works. Over time, people will live better and better. We have a system that unleashes human potential, and now China has a system that unleashes human potential. We will have interruptions. We overshoot and undershoot sometimes, but your kids and grandkids will live better than you. Over time, we move ahead at a pretty damn rapid rate. — Warren Buffett

If I have to spend a lot of time on planes, I try to think of this as time off. In certain ways, it's more restful than home: no Internet, no phones, no interruptions. — Margaret Heffernan

He has impressed upon our natures or states - must be an imitation of God incarnate: our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. For this, so strangely unlike anything we can attribute to the Divine life in itself, is apparently not only like, but is, the Divine life operating under human conditions. — C.S. Lewis

Life was too often a series of interruptions. Phone calls, family crises, other people always interrupting, — Tess Gerritsen

I took out my first library card ... I spent most of my Saturdays at the library (no interruptions) breathing in the world of penniless shoeshine boys who, with goodness and perseverance, became rich, rich men, and gave baskets of goodies to the poor on holidays. The little princesses who were mistaken for maids, and the long-lost children mistaken for waifs, became more real to me than our house, our mother, our school or Mr. Freeman — Maya Angelou

By God's grace I can resist the temptation to treat my children as interruptions to my will for my life. Instead, God enables me to treat my children as precious gifts he is using to shape me into his image according to his will for my life. — Gloria Furman

I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my "real" life again at last. That is what is strange - that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened. Without the interruptions, nourishing and maddening, this life would become arid. Yet I taste it fully only when I am alone here and "the house and I resume old conversations". — May Sarton

At any given moment, four or five separate dialogues were going on across the table, but because people weren't necessarily talking to the person next to them, these dialogues kept intersecting with one another, causing abrupt shifts in the pairings of the speakers, so that everyone seemed to be taking part in all the conversations at the same time, simultaneously chattering away about his or her own life and eavesdropping on everyone else as well. Add to this the frequent interruptions from the children, the coming and goings of the different courses, the pouring of wine, the dropped plates, overturned glasses, and spilled condiments, the dinner began to resemble an elaborate, hastily improvised vaudeville routine. — Paul Auster

What is life but an unpleasant interruption to a peaceful nonexistence. — Jean-Paul Sartre

In the beginning, I had considered these stops on my journey as interruptions - but I'm coming to understand that perhaps these detours are my journey. — Richard Paul Evans

Living a life of following Christ means constant interruptions. — Bob Goff

Those who can sit in a chair, undistracted for hours, mastering subjects and creating things will rule the world - while the rest of us frantically and futilely try to keep up with texts, tweets, and other incessant interruptions. — Arianna Huffington

When we understand that He is Lord of our time, we realize that interruptions are of His planning. They become opportunities to serve rather than plagues to keep us from functioning. — Karen Burton Mains

It is the leisured, I have noticed, who rebel the most at an interruption of routine. — Phyllis McGinley

The only thing nicer than a phone that didn't ring all the time (or indeed at all) was six phones that didn't ring all the time (or indeed at all). — Douglas Adams

all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable. — Timothy Ferriss

Talking on a landline with no interruptions used to be an everyday thing. Now it's exotic; the jewel in the crown. — Sherry Turkle

While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation of the year 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with an horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which made existence misery. From this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved; and all his labours, and all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence. — Samuel Johnson

Just about the only interruption we don't object to is applause. — Sydney J. Harris

Have you ever noticed that life consists mostly of interruptions, with occasional spells of rush work in between? — Buwei Yang Chao

If I know somebody is coming 'round, it is incredibly difficult for me to work because I'm waiting for this interruption - even the children's comings and goings are interruptions. Cake-making is a good way of coming out of that space. — Rachel Cusk

When we read, we decide when, where, how long, and about what. One of the few places on earth that it is still possible to experience an instant sense of freedom and privacy is anywhere you open up a good book and begin to read. When we read silently, we are alone with our own thoughts and one other voice. We can take our time, consider, evaluate, and digest what we read - with no commercial interruptions, no emotional music or special effects manipulation. And in spite of the advances in electronic information exchange, the book is still the most important medium for presenting ideas of substance and value, still the only real home of literature. — Andrew Clements

The whole panoply of the universe has been neatly expressed to them as things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. This frees the mind from unnecessary thoughts and gives it a cutting edge where it matters. Your normal animal, in fact, never tries to walk and chew gum at the same time. The average human, on the other hand, thinks about all sorts of things around the clock, on all sorts of levels, with interruptions from dozens of biological calendars and time-pieces. There's thoughts about to be said, and private thoughts, and real thoughts, and thoughts about thoughts, and a whole gamut of subconscious thoughts. — Terry Pratchett

She said interruptions were simply God's appointments. — Debbie Macomber

Babbitt looked up irritably from the comic strips in the Evening Advocate. They composed his favorite literature and art, these illustrated chronicles in which Mr. Mutt hit Mr. Jeff with a rotten egg, and Mother corrected Father's vulgarisms by means of a rolling-pin. With the solemn face of a devotee, breathing heavily through his open mouth, he plodded nightly through every picture, and during the rite he detested interruptions. — Sinclair Lewis

Writing is my only interest. Even speaking is an interruption. — Isaac Asimov

If you really want to focus on something, says Castellanos, the optimum amount of time to spend on it is ninety minutes. Then change tasks. And watch out for interruptions once you're really concentrating, because it will take you twenty minutes to recover. — Winifred Gallagher

The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life - the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one's "real life" is a phantom of one's own imagination. — Tim Challies

I thought that teaching twenty-eight energetic and needy children how to read had to be the hardest job on earth. I was wrong - mothering was. Now I had to give up my right to sleep when I needed it, to a meal without interruptions, to relaxation when I wanted it, and most importantly, my right to withdraw when I felt overwhelmed. — Jani Ortlund

A poet or novelist will invent interruptions to avoid long consecutive days at the ordained page; and of these the most pernicious are other kinds of writing
articles, lectures, reviews, a wide correspondence. — Shirley Hazzard

We shall never have a science of economics unless we learn to discern the operation of law even among the most perplexing complications and apparent interruptions. — William Stanley Jevons

if you really want it, you'll keep at it. Despite setbacks, interruptions, and sidetracks. No matter how long you get off course, you'll eventually return - if you really want what you say you do. — M.J. Ryan

People outside of mental institutions need to have good morals so that the world will continue to work without any major interruptions - and happy endings will flourish. — Matthew Quick

I admire the Shabbat tradition, and no matter which faith you are of, there is nothing more wonderful than dedicating a certain day to spend time with your family and loved ones, absent of TV, phone, and other interruptions. — Joyce Giraud

Meditation is a practice of detaching and then stopping ourselves from thinking; our thoughts are interruptions in the flow of awareness. Consciousness, in its highest aspect, is perfect and formless. — Frederick Lenz

We may be assured by past experience, that such a practice [as some states charging high taxes on goods from other states] would be introduced by future contrivances; and both by that and a common knowledge of human affairs, that it would nourish unceasing animosities, and not improbably terminate in serious interruptions of the public tranquility. — James Madison

Interrupted again! if it's not Jules it's the cat! that's the female speciality: interruptions! — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

No interruptions, stereos pumpin from the dungeon, coming live from Flatbush Junction — Capital STEEZ

There are no interruptions, only mismanaged inputs — David Allen

I do my best thinking at night when everyone else is sleeping. No interruptions. No noise. I like the feeling of being awake when no one else is. — Jennifer Niven

One of the major keys to success is to keep moving forward on the journey, making the best of the detours and interruptions, turning adversity into advantage. — John C. Maxwell

They are sacred, modest rendezvous between maidens," she said. "Being a library, it's quiet and only certain people come here, so there aren't many interruptions. They say that ever since before anyone can remember, it's been a popular rendezvous spot for girls who long to see each other. People started calling it 'The Secret Garden.' Although the meetings are called 'rendezvous,' that doesn't necessarily mean that anything particularly 'big' happens. — Anonymous

What goes on inside the school is an interruption of education. — Marshall McLuhan

Nowhere you can go is more peaceful - more free of interruptions - than your own soul. Especially — Marcus Aurelius

I am less likely to deny my suffering when I learn how God uses it to mold me and draw me closer to him. I will be less likely to see my pains as interruptions to my plans and more able to see them as the means for God to make me ready to receive him. I let Christ live near my hurts and distractions. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

If the Holy Ghost judged the state of the Jewish Church to be weak and imperfect - because it rested on high priests that died one after another, although their succession was expressly ordained of God himself - shall we suppose that the Lord Christ, who came to consummate the church, and to bring it unto the most perfect estate whereof in this world it is capable, should build it on a succession of dying men, concerning which succession there is not the least intimation that it is appointed of God? And as unto the matter of fact, we know both what interruptions it hath received, and what monsters it hath produced - both sufficiently manifesting that it is not of God. — John Owen

When I first took this job at the factory it was not my intention to work there very long, for I once possessed higher hopes for my life, although the exact nature of these hopes remained rather vague in my youthful mind. While the work was not arduous, and my fellow workers congenial enough, I did not imagine myself standing forever at my designated assembly block, fitting together pieces of metal into other pieces of metal, with a few interruptions throughout that day for breaks that were supposed to refresh our minds from the tedium of our work or for meal breaks to allow us to nourish our bodies. Somehow it never occurred to me that the nearby town where I and the others at the factory lived, travelling to and from our jobs along the same fog-strewn road, held no higher opportunities for me or anyone else, which no doubt accounts for the vagueness, the wispy insubstantiality, of my youthful hopes. — Thomas Ligotti

[T]he normal and the everyday are often amazingly unstoppable, and what is unimaginable is the cessation of them. The world is resilient, and, no matter what interruptions occur, people so badly want to return to their lives and get on with them. A veneer of civilization descends quickly, like a shining rain. Dust is settled. — Lorrie Moore

Interruptions are the spice of life. — Don Herold

Go ahead with your life, your plans ... Don't waste time by stopping before the interruptions have started. — Richard L. Evans

Interruptions were sometimes more frequent than statements. The process, compared to a well-managed executive conference, was a slab of raw beef compared to a wiring diagram. Raw beef, however, functions better than a wiring diagram would, in its place - inside a living animal. — Ursula K. Le Guin

[Loosen] up your life enough to be ready for interruptions. Don't structure your days so rigidly that you lock out God from working with you in the middle of them. — Christine Caine

Why is that I never get cut off from pity, sympathy, participation, in spite of the fact that I am living out of my own dream, my interior vision, my fantasies without any interruptions. I dream, I kiss, I have orgasms, I get exalted, I leave the world, I float, I cook, I sew, have nightmares, write in my head, compose, decompose, improvise, invent, I listen to all, I hear all that is said, I feel Spain, I am aware, I am everywhere , I am open to wounds, open to love, I am rooted to my devotions, I am never separete, I am never cut off, never blind, deaf, absent. I hold on to the dream which makes life possible, to the creation which transfigures, to the God who sustains, to the crimes which gave life, to the illusions which makes the marvelous possible. I hold on to the poetry and the human simplicities. — Anais Nin

But I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they're bad they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they're good, I turn into a social moron for days, refusing to go out of my room, scowling and growling at interruptions, ignoring weddings and funerals, and making enemies out of friends. I still bear the scars of Middlemarch. — Vikram Seth

It is only when the correct practice is followed for a long time, without interruptions and with a quality of positive attitude and eagerness, that it can succeed. — Patanjali

The effectiveness of work increases according to geometric progression if there are no interruptions. — Andre Maurois

Keep your mind clear to create simple solutions. Remove any distractions, like the TV, email prompts, unnecessary interruptions or telephone calls. — Lisa A. Mininni

The average American worker has fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work. — W. Edwards Deming

Ideals do exist, the rest is just temporary interruption. — Vanna Bonta

I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted; then I realized that the interruptions were my work. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Viewed from a distance, or through the eye of the All-Knowing CEO of the Universe, the crash of 2008 followed the usual pattern. A long-lived boom driven by cheap credit, going back as far as 1982 (though subject to interruptions in the mid-1980s and 1990s, and in 2001), came to grief because of a rise in the cost of borrowing money. — James Buchan

Circumstances may cause interruptions and delays, but never lose sight of your goal. — Mario Andretti

The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions. The door that slams shut, the plan that got sidetracked, the marriage that failed. Or that lovely poem that didn't get written because someone knocked on the door. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Mr. Baggins saw then how clever Gandalf had been. The interruptions had really made Beorn more interested in the story, and the story had kept him from sending the dwarves off at once like suspicious beggars. He never invited people into his house, if he could help it. He had very few friends and they lived a good way away; and he never invited more than a couple of these to his house at a time. Now he had got fifteen strangers sitting in his porch! — Anonymous

Other people's interruptions of your work are relatively insignificant compared with the countless times you interrupt yourself. — Brendan Behan

Work is a mess" encourages us to first recognize that we can never have a completely neat relationship with our livelihood. Treating work's messiness as if it were a mistake or liability only creates further unnecessary distress and resentment. By developing the attitude that work is a mess, we can learn to relax and be curious about the surprises and interruptions. By engaging the messiness of work directly - appreciating both the advantages and disadvantages - we become fully equipped to engage such events in all their variations. — Michael Carroll

BLAMING IDIOTS FOR interruptions is like blaming clowns for scaring children - they can't help it. It's their nature. Then again, I had (who am I kidding - and have), on occasion, been known to create interruptions out of thin air. If you're anything like me, that makes us both occasional idiots. Learn to recognize and fight the interruption impulse. This is infinitely easier when you have a set of rules, responses, and routines to follow. — Timothy Ferriss

Sometimes I wake up before dawn, and I love sitting up in the middle of the bed with all the lights off, pitch-black dark, and talking to the Father, with no interruptions and nothing that reminds me that there's anything in life but me and Him. — Charles R. Swindoll

Ramil met Tashi's eyes with a mischievous look. "Now Wife we have a long voyage ahead of us with no interruptions, no affairs of state to sidetrack us." He brushed his fingers againist the lacings of her neck. "Isn't it time you returned that shirt to its owner? — Julia Golding

Programming requires more concentration than other activities. It's the reason programmers get upset about 'quick interruptions' - such interruptions are tantamount to asking a juggler to keep three balls in the air and hold your groceries at the same time. — Steve McConnell

Families need to have a time when they can cook together. They can eat at the table and you can look eye-to-eye. Phones are put away and there are no interruptions. And what you do is concentrate on each other. Listen to what they have to say, and let them listen to you. — Kay Robertson

How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car. — Brennan Manning

We must stop regarding unpleasant or unexpected things as interruptions of real life. The truth is that interruptions are real life. — C.S. Lewis

Jesus ... wants us to see that the neighbor next door or the people sitting next to us on a plane or in a classroom are not interruptions to our schedule. They are there by divine appointment. Jesus wants us to see their needs, their loneliness, their longings, and he wants to give us the courage to reach out to them. — Rebecca Pippert

First, let me finish. Then interrupt. — Brian Spellman

The present's just a pleasant interruption to the past. — Andrew McMahon

It's a fallacy that writers have to shut themselves up in their ivory towers to write. I have all these interruptions, three of which I gave birth to. If I was thrown for a loop every time I was distracted I could never get anything done. — Jodi Picoult

Well, it doesn't sound particularly noble and knightly to say you've rescued the Chief Cook and Librarian, does it? And it has cut down on the number of interruptions. I used to get two or three knights a day, and now there's only about one a week. And the ones who do come are at least smart enough to figure out that I'm still a princess even if the dragons call me Chief Cook — Patricia C. Wrede

There are no interruptions, really - there are simply mismanaged occurrences. — David Allen

Remember that everything that happens to you is first filtered through God's hand. Interruptions can become opportunities. What you might see as distractions God might see as divine appointments. Things may happen that seem so haphazard and distracting to our agenda, but with a fresh dose of perspective, they can turn into precious moments. — Lysa TerKeurst

If I'm really feeling good and not having a lot of interruptions, I can do a minute of animation a day, so theoretically, I could do a film in three months without any interruptions. — Bill Plympton

Believing that life interruptions - divine interruptions - are a privilege not only causes us to handle them differently but to await them eagerly. — Priscilla Shirer

Quote from my book DIVINE INTERRUPTIONS: A BIBLE STUDY THROUGH THE BOOK OF JOB. Available on Amazon.

"LIFE lessons are so challenging!
God never promised us an easy life, but it's not all darkness and suffering. We have a choice to see things with a positive mind set. Recognizing the negativity in our thinking is the first step toward a perspective transformation. This is a big step in the healing process, and usually produces Christian growth and greater spiritual maturity. — Cheryl Zelenka

The Internet, like all intellectual technologies has a trade off. As we train our brains to use it, as we adapt to the environment of the internet, which is an environment of kind of constant immersion and information and constant distractions, interruptions, juggling lots of messages, lots of bits of information. — Nicholas G. Carr

Customary interruptions are not only gratifying and cheering, but they are also really necessary in order to gain breath and voice to carry one on through some violent exertions; though after all it must be confessed that silence is the most flattering applause an Actor can receive. — Sarah Siddons

Sunday is the one day I keep reminding myself that I should lay around and take it easy, but because I am O.C.D. and an extreme multitasker, I find it hard to get lazy. I love Sundays for painting because it's quieter; the gallery is closed, and there are no interruptions. — April Gornik

Rising demand for oil exposed Europe, and later America, to oil shocks - serious interruptions in supply. Like a pebble tossed into a pond, an oil shock creats ripples, or effects, felt everywhere.
Oil shocks have two causes. The first is natural, because existing oil fields may not yield enough to satisfy demand. Scarcity results in higher prices for oil products, reducing our standard of living. Natural scarcity was not a problem in the world's major producing areas until recently.
The second cause of oil shocks is political. Political shocks happen when governments of oil-producing countries reduce or halt supply to gain the upper hand in dealings with other governments. This is the case in the Middle East, where oil has often mixed with politics, religion, and blood. The reasons for this have shaped the history of recent times. — Albert Marrin

Loving people the way Jesus did, means living a life of constant interruptions. Bring it. — Bob Goff

The men could be easily distinguished as fellow Americans by the quality of their mustaches and the innocent and amicable expressions on their faces; the several women could only have come from New England, making this clear, he felt, by their willingness to allow their menfolk the right to speak at length while confining their own talk to short and brisk, intelligent interruptions or slightly disagreeable remarks once the men had finished. — Colm Toibin

Because each of you has his or her own death, you carry it with you in a secret place from the moment you're born, it belongs to you and you belong to it. — Jose Saramago

Talk to anyone about himself positively and he'll listen without interruption. — Dale Carnegie

SHE RESEARCHED WHEN everyone slept. In the dead silence, her mind worked with more clarity. No interruptions, no worries. Sometimes she even imagined that her ancestors guided her. That they reached out from the past to share their stories.
"Hocus Pocus!" she thought, smiling. Her inside joke was a source of inspiration.
But her imagination was not far-fetched.
My second cousin, twice removed, is a family historian. She is also a lawyer. And this is why I chose her. I needed her to do me a favor. I chose her, although she is a business lawyer and not a criminal lawyer. That was fine by me. It's not like my lawyers did a superb job at defending me. I was wrongfully executed. — Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini