Quotes & Sayings About Pacing

There is also a dimension of patience which links it to a special reverence for life. Patience is a willingness, in a sense, to watch the unfolding purposes of God with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than pacing up and down within the cell of our circumstance. Put another way, too much anxious opening of the oven door and the cake falls instead of rising. So it is with us. If we are always selfishly taking our temperature to see if we are happy, we will not be. — Neal A. Maxwell

The prompt Paris morning struck its cheerful notes - in a soft breeze and a sprinkled smell, in the light flit, over the garden-floor, of bareheaded girls with the buckled strap of oblong boxes, in the type of ancient thrifty persons basking betimes where terrace-walls were warm, in the blue-frocked brass-labelled officialism of humble rakers and scrapers, in the deep references of a straight-pacing priest or the sharp ones of a white-gaitered red-legged soldier. He watched little brisk figures, figures whose movement was as the tick of the great Paris clock, take their smooth diagonal from point to point; the air had a taste as of something mixed with art, something that presented nature as a white-capped master-chef. The — Henry James

The storyboard artists job is to plan out shot for shot the whole show, write all the dialog, and decide the mood, action, jokes, pacing, etc of every scene. — Craig McCracken

When The Journal of Words compiled its list of the one hundred best novels written in English, do you know that Pride and Prejudice was number twelve?" She stopped pacing and glared at Jane. "And do you know where Jane Eyre was?" she asked. She looked at the four of them in turn, but nobody answered her. "Number fifty-two!" she shrieked. "Fifty-two! Below that pornographic travesty Lolita!" She spat the title as if it were poison. "Below Huckleberry Finn! Below Ulysses. Have you ever tried to read Ulysses? Have you ever finished it? No, you haven't. No one has. They just carry it around and lie about having read it. — Michael Thomas Ford

I sigh and flop down on my bed. "Okay." He starts pacing the room. "Rewind and tell me what happened from the beginning."
"Okay." I blow out a breath and try to calm down. "So she touched my dick."
"Where?"
"MY DICK! Are you not listening?"
"Settle down, asshole. Where were you when she touched ... "
His face contorts to a grimace. "You know ... your ... "
"My dick? At school."
"HOLY SHIT ! What the hell are they letting happen in schools these days?"
"What?" I yell, frustrated. "No! It's not like she pulled my pants down in the cafeteria while we were all eating lunch and decided to tug me. — Jay McLean

I haven't been able to get you out of my head. I don't know why. At work, at home. All I can think about is how crazy it feels when I'm near you, and I need you to make it stop, Lily." He stops pacing and faces me. "Please make it stop. Just once - that's all it'll take. I swear. — Colleen Hoover

Take a walk outside - it will serve you far more than pacing around in your mind. — Rasheed Ogunlaru

Making comic adaptations means making a lot of choices - you need to adjust the pacing, the dialogue, and in this case, a lot of the cultural references. — Raina Telgemeier

But I can't leave, not yet. I'll stay with her until sunrise. If I brace my feet, I won't slide. I can rest my cheek on the roof tile and still see her. Pacing. Pulling her hair.
"I'll fix you," I tell her. "I promise."
Even though I don't know how.
It's better than good-bye. — Pam Bachorz

Without even knowing it, we are assaulted by a high note of urgency all the time. We end up pacing ourselves to the city rhythm whether or not it's our own. In time we even grow hard of hearing to the rest of the world. Like a violinist stuck next to the timpani, we may lose the ability to hear our own instrument. — Ellen Goodman

Miss La Trobe was pacing to and fro between the leaning birch trees. One hand was deep stuck in her jacket pocket; the other held a foolscap sheet. She was reading what was written there. She had the look of a commander pacing his deck. The leaning graceful trees with black bracelets circling the silver bark were distant about a ship's length. — Virginia Woolf

On hands and knees the figure comes pacing along beside the wall that flanks the patio, lithe, sinuous, knife in mouth perpendicular to its course. In moonlight and out of it, as each successive archway of the portico circles high above it, comes down to join its support, and is gone again to the rear.
The moon is a caress on supple skin. The moon of Anahuac understands, the moon is in league, the moon will not betray. ("The Moon of Montezuma") — Cornell Woolrich

Have you ever heard a good joke? If you've ever heard someone just right, with the right pacing, then you're already on the way to poetry. It's about using words in very precise ways and using gesture. — Rita Dove

I picture my books as movies when I get stuck, and when I'm working on a new idea, the first thing I do is hit theaters to work out pacing and mood. — Maggie Stiefvater

I shouldn't tell you about it," Daisy railed, pacing back and forth in the Marsden parlor later that evening. "In your condition you shouldn't be distressed. But I can't keep it to myself or I will explode, which you would probably find infinitely more distressing. — Lisa Kleypas

As far as pacing the shoot is concerned, I know when I've got it. I don't think there's any reason to take ten takes unless you need them. — Debbie Allen

Usually when I put my focus on the pacing, the plot, the specific characterizations, - it's ironic - but then I actually increase my chances of writing something that moves people because I haven't become too self-conscious of the goal. — Christopher Rice

Writing is like running a marathon. One needs stamina and perseverance. The right preparation and pacing get results. — K.J. Kilton

By the time they reached Calais he was in tearing spirits. Once on board he had a small Scotch and pacing the deck watched with satisfaction the waves that Britannia traditionally rules. It was grand to see the white cliffs of Dover. He gave a sigh of relief when he stepped on the stubborn English soil. He felt as though he had been away for ages. It was a treat to hear the voices of the English porters, and he laughed at the threatening uncouthness of the English customs officials who treated you as though you were a confirmed criminal. In another two hours he would be home again. That's what his father always said: "There's only one thing I like better than getting out of England, and that's getting back to it." Already — W. Somerset Maugham

As the body rots, so does the cage that traps us in our wordly concerns. When my legs become too weak to carry my body, I stopped pacing with worry. When my fingers became twisted, I stopped pointing blame. When I lost my sight, I stopped seeing illusions. It may be dark in the pot that I am simmering in, but I can see more clearly than I have ever seen in my life. — Samantha Sotto

the station, but Ruth and Marie were against the idea. What if one of the neighbors saw them all waiting for Johanna? It would only lead to prying questions. So Peter was reduced to pacing up and down in front of the door like a prison warden. Ruth and Marie left him to it. It was almost eight o'clock when they finally heard him say, "She's coming!" They all rushed outside. Johanna was as white as a sheet. She didn't wave her hand, or laugh, or call out "We've got a contract!" From the look on her face and her heavy gait, there could only be one explanation. It had all gone terribly wrong. They didn't dare look at each other. They were rooted to the spot as they watched Johanna approach. Neighbors passing by on the street watched the scene in surprise. — Petra Durst-Benning

Tim Henman, I guess, is sitting in the locker room, pacing up and down. — John Inverdale

An Englishmen thinks seated; a Frenchmen standing; an American pacing, an Irishman, afterwards. — Austin O'Malley

He stabs his fingers through his drying hair and resumes his pacing. "You think I don't know this went really fast? I didn't plan for this to happen. Hell, I didn't even know if you'd let me talk to you, much less be with you. But then you did and we did and ... " He stops in the center of the room and stares at me, his shoulders sagging. "I figured out pretty quick that this is a forever thing for me. I think it has been from the very beginning. — Kate Avelynn

We'd be working in our motel room through the night, and I'd come up with an idea at two in the morning, and he'd start jumping up and down, pacing across the room, or whatever. — Arthur Hiller

That image - of a little child being suffocated, or almost suffocated, by others who thought the whole thing was a game - melded with the furtive nocturnal slugs, and my solitary pacing and singing, and the separate, claustrophobic stairway, and the charmless abstract painting, and the gold-framed mirror, and the slithery green satin bedspread, and became inseperable from them. It wasn't a cheerful composite. As a memory, it is more like a fog bank than a sunlit meadow.
Yet I think of that period as having been a happy time in my life.
Happy is the wrong word. Important. — Margaret Atwood

People think that because people do religious stuff, that's all we're supposed to do. But with God's help, everything that He wants me to accomplish, I'm going to do it. It's all about pacing. — Andrae Crouch

But it's mostly about pacing yourself when you do these movies. — Robert Englund

When did you grow a back bone?" Cassius stopped pacing and actually smiled a little.

Kendall wasn't appeased "I borrowed Jory's — Gabrielle Evans

For me, writing for kids is harder because they're a more discriminating audience. While adults might stay with you, if you lose your pacing or if you have pages of extraneous description, a kid's not going to do that. They will drop the book. — Rick Riordan

In most countries, it is possible to visit zoos and see bored animals pacing back and forth in cages, with nothing to do but wait for the next meal. Circuses are even worse places for animals. Their living conditions are deplorable, especially in travelling circuses where cages have to be small so that they can go on the road. — Peter Singer

In a popular teaching story, a man being chased by a tiger leaps off a cliff in his attempt to get away. Fortunately, a tree growing on the side of the cliff breaks his fall. Dangling from it by one arm - tiger pacing above, jutting rocks hundreds of feet below - he yells out in desperation, "Help! Somebody help me!!" A voice responds, "Yes?" The man screams, "God, God, is that you?" Again, "Yes." Terrified, the man says, "God, I'll do anything, just please, please, help me." God responds, "Okay then, just let go." The man pauses for a moment, then calls out, "Is anyone else there? — Tara Brach

Rosenfeld runs the metropolitan staff, the Post's largest, like a football coach. He prods his players, letting them know that he has promised the front office results, pleading, yelling, cajoling, pacing, working his facial expressions for instant effects - anger, satisfaction, concern.
Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Carl Bernstein

Growing old is to be set free, Brother. It is aslow and long-simmering process that extracts from you what you are really made of. But it requires acceptance. You cannot put a flailing chicken in a boiling pot. You must accept the heat and the pain with serenity so that the full flavors of your life may be released.
You may see this as decay, and it is. But it is also much more than that. As the body rots, so does the cage that traps us in our worldly concerns. When my legs became too weak to carry my body, I stopped pacing with worry. When my fingers became twisted, I stopped pointing blame. When I lost my sight, I stopped seeing illusions. It may be dark in the pot that I am simmering in, but I can see more clearly than I have ever seen in my life. I can see you, Brother, and I know who you are. — Samantha Sotto

I gave Clive a sock full of catnip and a bowlful of tuna. My hope was to get him wasted and passed out before the action started. The treats had the opposite effect. My boy was ready to party down when the first strains of Purina came shrieking through the walls about one fifteen in the morning. If Clive could have put on a mini smoking jacket, he would have. He stalked the room, pacing back and forth in front of the wall, playing it cool. When Purina began her meows, though, he couldn't contain himself. He once again launched toward the wall. He jumped from nightstand to dresser to shelf, scaling pillows and even a lamp to get closer to his beloved. When he realized he would never be able to burrow under the plaster, he serenaded her with some weird kind of kitty Barry White, his yowls matching hers in intensity. — Alice Clayton

Certainly my films are cinematically unusual, and quite contemplative in their pacing compared to conventional films, but I think overall they are quite engaging, accessible, and even funny. — Jenni Olson

The movements of the highest warriors are relaxed and expansive because they fight for a cause larger than themselves. Only by surrendering to God's will does one find victory in battle and serenity in life. Serafim started pacing again, as he did — Dan Millman

I hear her pacing the house, mumbling, words I can barely make out and am frightened to hear. The words 'Carpe Diem' come from her lips like she's a broken, skipping record, and I clutch the pendant of my necklace tightly, fighting back tears. Because I know she's talking to him, appealing to an invisible man named John, the one who walked out on her when I was born. I know it's not my fault. Not my fault she's this way. Not my fault he left her. But fuck if I don't feel guilty anyway. — J.M. Darhower

A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, 'Today I'm going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep. — Leo Tolstoy

Feet gauge the pliable tracts of snowy hoodlum
Amidst the pacing sobs of our night sky
I watch you go, I watch them come
Within the life span of an iridescent sigh;
I watch the tracks bereft of a human hand,
I watch them trite in thy laconic land,
I watch them silent from where I stand,
I watch them marking a bloodied rand,
I watch the tracks bereft of a human hand,
I watch them silent from where I stand. — Ashfaq Saraf

Ever argue with a female and, in the middle of the argument, you no longer feel safe because of her actions? She may start pacing back and forth real fast, breathing out her nose. You know what my girl do? When she get mad, she start talking in the third person. That's scary as hell because that's her way of telling me that from this point on, she is not responsible for none of her actions. — Kevin Hart

Can we get out of here?"
"Your chariot awaits."
"In the form of a blue Ford ute?" I curved my brow.
"But of course," he said in an over-the-top French accent.
"Sacre blur, bad accent alert!"
"Wow," he said, "Le rude?"
"Le sorry?"
"Le hurt." Toby clutched his heart.
"What can I do to soothe your shattered ego?"
Toby drummed his chin thoughtfully, pacing around me. He stopped just near enough to whisper in my ear.
"Le kiss? — C.J. Duggan

These days, many well-meaning school districts bring together teachers, coaches, curriculum supervisors, and a cast of thousands to determine what skills your child needs to be successful. Once these "standards" have been established, pacing plans are then drawn up to make sure that each particular skill is taught at the same rate and in the same way to all children. This is, of course, absurd. It gets even worse when one considers the very real fact that nothing of value is learned permanently by a child in a day or two. — Rafe Esquith

A book is maybe about 350 pages, and the prose allows for readers to get a glimpse into the internal lives of the characters. A screenplay is 120 pages, and it's all dialogue and action. The pacing of films is different, the structure is often different, and the internal lives of the characters must come across through the acting. Movies are just a different experience than reading - so it just depends on what an individual prefers. — Nicholas Sparks

I wanted to follow the rain on its meanderings about our land to rejoin the sea, to break out of the frustration of a lifetime doing lengths, of endlessly turning back on myself like a tiger pacing its cage — Roger Deakin

I walked back by way of the sea-lions' enclosure to refresh my eyes with the King Penguin's perfect ecclesiastical tailoring. He was pacing moodily about as usual, in what one felt to be the interval between a marriage ceremony and a funeral service. Much better, I thought, to have left the 2000 a year to him. No harm would then be done, and what perfect episcopal garden-parties he could give with it! — Edward Verrall Lucas

I try to tell a story the way someone would tell you a story in a bar, with the same kind of timing and pacing. — Chuck Palahniuk

But now she could not bear the way she sounded. She was not a person anyone could love.
...
And thus fled to her room. There she wept, bitterly, an ugly sound punctuated by great gulps. She could not stop herself. She could hear his footsteps in the passage outside. He walked up and down, up and down.
'Come in,' she prayed. 'Oh dearest, do come in.'
But he did not come in. He would not come in. This was the man she had practically contracted to give away her fortune to. He offered to marry her as a favour and then he would not even come into her room.
Later, she could smell him make himself a sweet pancake for his lunch. She thought this a childish thing to eat, and selfish, too. If he were a gentleman he would now come to her room and save her from the prison her foolishness had made for her. He did not come. She heard him pacing in his room. — Peter Carey

Even the warriors were pacing about like leopards, chafing at the delay. She added, "You're such a good rider, Shioni. I envy you." She envied her slave-girl? Touching the silver band encircling her neck, Shioni sighed in her heart. It was a simple piece of metal, but it said so much. The necklet was stamped with the symbol of the Lion of Sheba, and letters that proclaimed, 'Property of Sheba'. — Marc Secchia

Pacing back and forth now on the spur of his conflicting needs, Covenant growled, "Baradakas said just about the same thing. By hell! You people terrify me. When I try to be responsible, you pressure me
and when I collapse you
You're not asking the right questions. You don't have the vaguest notion of what a leper is, and it doesn't even occur to you to inquire. _That's_ why Foul chose me for this. Because I can't
Damnation! Why don't you ask me about where I come from? I've got to tell you. The world I come from doesn't allow anyone to live except on its own terms. Those terms
those terms contradict yours."
"What are its terms?" the High Lord asked carefully.
"That your world is a dream." — Stephen R. Donaldson

And what exactly is nature walking? It's any and every kind of walking you can do in the natural world. The activity encompasses strolling, striding, sauntering, stepping, treading, tramping, traipsing, traversing, rambling, roving, roaming, racewalking, hiking, meandering, wandering, wending, pacing, peregrinating, perambulating ... in natural surroundings. — Charlie Cook

Pacing is not the sort of thing you can plan out beforehand, but you're always aware of it as you write, because you need to make constant decisions. — Jean Hanff Korelitz

Baseball shaded my entire outlook on life, because that's how I first saw the world. I looked at everything, even today, through what I learned about the game. Like pacing yourself, focusing yourself, preparing yourself for what you want to do, keeping yourself healthy for the game. I do all that through the eyes of a ballplayer. — Kurt Russell

Claire glanced up from where she had been pacing, twisting the two-carat canary diamond ring on her third finger. She had not noticed her mother's entrance. She stopped pacing. She knew how much her mother loved that — Mara Stone

I find it enormously valuable to be sure that that the pacing is what I think it is and that the scenes have the shape I think they have musically and dramatically. — Carlisle Floyd

If the mitred bishops seen you that time, they'd be the like of the holy prophets, I'm thinking, do be straining the bars of Paradise to lay eyes on the Lady Helen of Troy, and she abroad, pacing back and forward, with a nosegay in her golden shawl. — J.M. Synge

He is pacing back and forth humming the theme from Rent or maybe cats. — Jesse Andrews

Books leave gestures in the body; a certain way of moving, of turning, a certain closing of the eyes, a way of leaving, hesitations. Books leave certain sounds, a certain pacing; mostly they leave the elusive, which is all the story. They leave much more than the words. — Dionne Brand

But it isn't a rough draft either. The one I turned in several months ago was rough. There were some bad plot holes, some logical inconsistencies, pacing problems, and not nearly enough lesbian unicorns. — Patrick Rothfuss

Sometimes a cloudless swatch of sky would blow past the moon, and Pella could see the outline of Mike's face in a slightly sharper relief. It was strange the way he loved her: a sidelong and almost casual love, as if loving her were simply a matter of course, too natural to mention. Like their first meeting on the steps of the gym, when he'd hardly so much as glanced at her. With David and every guy before David, what passed for love had always been eye to eye, nose to nose; she felt watched, observed, like the prize at the zoo, and she wound up pacing, preening, watching back, to fit the part. Whereas Mike was always beside her. She would stand at the kitchen window and look out at the quad, at the Melville statue and beyond that the beach and the rolling lake, and realize that Make, for however long, had been standing beside her, staring at the same thing. — Chad Harbach

That's when I realize that the statistics the Officials give us do not matter to me. I know there are many people who are happy and I am glad for them. But this is Ky. If he is the one person who falls by the wayside while the other ninety-nine are happy and fulfilled, that is not right with me anymore. I realize that I don't care about the Officer pacing below or the other hikers among the trees, or really anything else at all, and that is when I realize how dangerous this truly is. — Ally Condie

Yeah, but if I don't start my nervous pacing now, I'll never have it all done in time. — Scott Lynch

Patience is a willingness, in a sense, to watch the unfolding purposes of God with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than pacing up and down within the cell of our circumstance. — Neal A. Maxwell

Songs are so all-encompassing; they're the joys and sorrows and pacing of life. — Neil Diamond

Language description and metaphors seem readily available. The things I have to work harder at are plot, pacing, and form. — Sarah Hall

So I have absolutely no privacy anymore? None? Because the four of you had to check scores with each other?" His frustration was clear.
"You know, for someone concerned with honesty, you ought to be grateful."
He stopped and stared. "I beg your pardon?"
"Everything is out in the open now. We all have a pretty good idea of where we stand, and I, for one, am thankful."
He rolled his eyes. "Thankful?" "If you had told me that Celeste and I were at about the same point with you physically, I would never have tried to come on to you like I did last night. Do you know how humiliated I was?" He scoffed and started pacing again. "Please, America, you've said and done so many foolish things, I'm surprised you can even be embarrassed anymore. — Kiera Cass

The whole journey was odd and dream-like
the roaring stream, the wet grey grass, the glimmering cliffs which they were approaching, and always the glorious, silently pacing beast ahead. — C.S. Lewis

Plot is certainly a part of constructing a story. It's a factor in outlining. But believe it or not, it's the least important factor. If you focus your efforts on the Three Legs - character arc, pacing, and theme - you can change the specifics of the plot a hundred different times, and you'll still have essentially the same story. — Libbie Hawker

The craft of writing is all the stuff that you can learn through school; go to workshops and read books. Learn characterization, plot and dialogue and pacing and word choice and point of view. Then there's also the art of it which is sort of the unknown, the inspiration, the stuff that is noncerebral. — Garth Stein

Jesus, you know I was walking back to the huddle and I looked over and, god damn, I almost flipped when I saw you and Davis standing together on the sideline. I thought, man, the world really is changing when you see a thing like that - Hunter Thompson and Al Davis - Christ, you know that's the first time I ever saw anybody with Davis during practice; the bastard's always alone out there, just pacing back and forth like a goddamn beast. ... — Hunter S. Thompson

But I will admit, that most of my life has been with the thought of the reaper pacing behind me. I know he's there. He's not freaking me out or anything, but he's reminding me to grab at life with joy. I get a lot of joy from my writing.

And I hope the other writers are too, because it's a great thing to create a world of your own making. We'll beat back the reaper just a little while longer and enjoy the ride in the meantime. — Jamie Freveletti

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it shows?"
Before Jude could answer, Brenna was up, pacing, knocking the heels of her hands against the sides of her, moaning out curses. "I'll have to move away, leave my family. I can go to the west counties. I have some people, on my mother's side, in Galway. No, no, that's not far enough. I'll have to leave the country entirely. I'll go to Chicago and stay with your granny until I get on me feet. She'll take me in, won't she? — Nora Roberts

It's no good pacing up and down. It won't make the plane arrive any faster. Just sit down and accept that we're delayed. You're just making a fool of yourself. — Noel Coward

When my father first came home from college, he sat my grandparents down to tell them some very serious news. They followed him quizzically into the living room, and from the bantam couch stared up at their nervous, pacing son.
"I'm gay," he announced.
They sat stunned for a moment, and just as his mother started to cry he said,
"Just kidding. I smoke. — Sarah Silverman

There's no real rules about what you do [while directing]; it's just you just use your instincts as to the pacing of a film and what is repetitive and what is the minimum amount you can get away with to tell the story, that scene didn't make it in. — Peter Jackson

Are we talking hell hounds and flames here?" Des asked, pacing at the end of our beds.
I repeated the question and gave a heaving sigh of relief when Jameson said I had the wrong idea.
"He's going to 'lead us into temptation.'"
"That doesn't sound so bad," Des said with a cheeky grin. — Terri Clark

Writing simply means no dependent clauses, no dangling things, no flashbacks, and keeping the subject near the predicate. We throw in as many fresh words we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don't always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it vital and alive.... Virtually every page is a cliffhanger--you've got to force them to turn it."~ — Dr. Seuss

He steps away from her, going to a little side table and removing a cloth that's lying on top. Underneath are severale shiny bits of metal. Mr. Hammar picks one up.
"And now for the second part of our interview", he says, approaching the woman.
Who starts to scream.
"That was," Davy says, pacing around as we wait outside but it's all he can get out. "That was." He turns to me. "Holy crap, Todd."
I don't say nothing, just take the apple I've been saving outta my pocket. "Apple," I whisper to Angharrad, my head close to hers. — Patrick Ness

Alafair Burke understands the criminal mind. Long Gone is both an education and an entertainment of the first order. This is a very clever and very smart novel by a very clever and smart writer. The dialogue crackles, the plot is intriguing, and the pacing is perfect. — Karin Slaughter

Now we are going to have a new noise, Eleanor thought, listening to the inside of her head; it is changing. The pounding had stopped, as though it had proved ineffectual, and there was now a swift movement up and down the hall, as of an animal pacing back and forth with unbelievable impatience, watching first one door and then another, alert for a movement inside, and there was again the little babbling murmur which Eleanor remembered; Am I doing it? She wondered quickly, is that me? And heard the tiny laughter beyond the door, mocking her. — Shirley Jackson

Pacing is really important in an organization. — Harry West

If you watch a lot of television, the pacing, the quick cutting is so frenetic, but it doesn't always make it funnier. What I'm noticing is that when things are allowed to unspool more slowly, younger crowds really like it. They really appreciate it. — Conan O'Brien

The body's habituation to walking as normal stems from the good olddays. It was the bourgeois form of locomotion: physicaldemythologization, free of the spell of hieratic pacing, rooflesswandering, breathless flight. Human dignity insisted on the right towalk, a rhythm not extorted from the body by command or terror. Thewalk, the stroll, were private ways of passing time, the heritage ofthe feudal promenade in the nineteenth century. — Theodor Adorno

He walked from one end of the basement to the other, the lamplight magnifying his shadow. It turned him into a giant on the wall, walking back and forth. When he stopped pacing, his shadow loomed behind him, watching. Someone was always watching. — Markus Zusak

I passed two idle days, watching fruitlessly.
I took to my hasty pacing to and fro again and succeeded, not without difficulty, in gaining a few days of respite, in making myself forget for a while.
I dwelt within these walls quiet in a feverish sort of way and inactive as a prisoner. I walked up and down my room a great part of the day, attracted by the opening in the wall and not daring to go away to a distance from it again.
The long hours went by, and in the evening I was worn out by my indefatigable hope. — Henri Barbusse

When he went outside, dazed by the echoes of his dream, the tiger was pacing the roof of the trailer. In the light of dawn he noticed the remarkable fact that the animal had wings harmoniously joined to its body. Wings of a swan or an angel. Two fans of white, silky, well-groomed feathers. It had come from a place where it had been raining because drops of water glistened like pellets of mercury on the edges of its feathers. It was something to see. — Eliseo Alberto

Every time I got 'Amazing Spider-Man' or 'Fantastic Four' or another book firmly on the rails, we got pulled into some big event book or crossover and it cost momentum and messed badly with the pacing and structure of the book. — J. Michael Straczynski

In terms of graphic versus prose, I could probably do a lecture on that topic. But what stood out most was the difference in pacing the language and resulting scenes. One illustration can do so much for the reader. — Cynthia Leitich Smith

But Lucius was staring at the beamed ceiling of the barn, pacing around, hands clasped behind
his back, muttering to himself. "This is not going well. Not going well at all. I advised the Elders
that you should have been summoned back to Romania years ago, that you would never be a
suitable bride ... "
Whoa, there. "Bride? — Beth Fantaskey

I focus a little more on pacing when I write books in the young adult category, and of course there's the great American fear of anything sexual, so that's somewhat backed off in YA. — Paolo Bacigalupi

This realization frightened her and made her unable to sleep at night, which, in turn, frightened her more. She feared the restlessness that was creeping upon her. She could almost hear her mind pacing within her skull, caged and bothered, and she felt the weight of all the years she had yet to live, bearing down upon her with heavy menace. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The corncob was the central object of my life. My father was a horse handler, first trotting and pacing horses, then coach horses, then work horses, finally saddle horses. I grew up around, on, and under horses, fed them, shoveled their manure, emptied the mangers of corncobs. — Paul Engle

His pacing stopped. The mattress sighed as he sat on the edge. seconds ticked by before he spoke so softly she could barely hear. Sometimes I want to leave this town so bad I can taste it. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

You look up for a moment and you're not sure which life is real. You've split yourself into so many honeycombed parts that they barely notice each other---all of them pacing, concurrently, parallel streams of though, and each one thinks of its self as me. — Dan Chaon

My heart is a schizophrenic. One sentence is about how I hate him. The next is about how much I love him. It goes on like that, back and forth, pacing. — Lesley Anne Cowan

[John] watched the flames for a while. "I would have to say that I find God in serving His children. 'When I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink, I was a stanger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, sick and you cared for me, imprisoned and you came to me.'"
The words lingered in the air as the fire popped and hissed softly. Sondoz had stopped pacing and stood motionless in a far corner of the room, his face in shadows, firelight glittering on the metallic exoskeleton of his hands. "Don't hope for more than that, John," he said. "God will break your heart. — Mary Doria Russell

I surrender my anxiety and my sense of urgency. I allow God to guide me in the pacing of my life. I open my heart to God's timing. I release my deadlines, agendas, and stridency to the gentle yet often swift pacing of God. As I open my heart to God's unfoldings, my heart attains peace. As I relax into God's timing, my heart contains comfort. As I allow God to set the tone and schedule of my days, I find myself in the right time and place, open and available to God's opportunities. — Julia Cameron

I've found my productive-writing-to-screwing-around ratio to be one to seven. So, for every eight hour day of writing, there is only one good productive hour of work being done. The other seven hours are preparing for writing: pacing around the house, collapsing cardboard bxes for recycling, reading the DVD extras pamphlet from BBC Pride & Prejudice, getting snacks lined up for writing, and YouTubing toddlers who learned the 'Single Ladies' dance. I know. Isn't that horrible? So, basically, writing this piece took me the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. — Mindy Kaling

With impeccable timing and a fine instinct for the telling detail, Francesca Abbate evokes the plenitudes and the deprivations of human habitation, the nurturing richness of landscape, and the soul-wound wrought by casual defacement. Abbate has a superb capacity for distillation and a mastery of poetic line, and her diction is remarkably flexible, accommodating both the demotic and the lyrical. Her poems are as consistent in quality as they are varied in pacing, surface, and tone. A fine first book. — Linda Gregerson

One of the things I admire about longer stories is the way writers can work with dead time and slower, more idle moments - not only can they feel expansive, they feel lived-in; the unhurried pacing often makes the endings even more resonant and surprising for me. — Molly Antopol