Peak Moment Quotes & Sayings

The arts especially address the idea of aesthetic experience. An aesthetic experience is one in which your senses are operating at their peak; when you're present in the current moment; when you're resonating with the excitement of this thing that you're experiencing; when you are fully alive. — Ken Robinson

I really think if you take away a character's obstacles then there's no comedy. — Kunal Nayyar

You are like night, calmed, constellated. Your silence is star-like, as distant, as true. — Pablo Neruda

So you're suggesting we take the train up to York, meet a ninety-year-old man, leap on him, and yank out his hair? I'm sure the Clave will be
ecstatic."
"They'll just say you're mad," said Jessamine. "They already think it, so what's the difference, really? — Cassandra Clare

People seemed to have two different selves - an experiencing self who endures every moment equally and a remembering self who gives almost all the weight of judgment afterward to two single points in time, the worst moment and the last one. The remembering self seems to stick to the Peak-End rule even when the ending is an anomaly. Just a few minutes without pain at the end of their medical procedure dramatically reduced patients' overall pain ratings even after they'd experienced more than half an hour of high level of pain. "That wasn't so terrible," they'd reported afterward. A bad ending skewed the pain scores upward just as dramatically. — Atul Gawande

Think like a prophet, serve like a priest, and plan like a king. — Timothy Keller

He kissed her soundly, stealing her breath, before saying, "Tell me what you want, my lovely."
"I-" She stopped, too many words coming at once. 'I want you to touch me. I want you to love me. I want you to show me the life that I have been missing.' She shook her head, uncertain.
He smiled, pressing firmly with his hand against her, watching the wave of pleasure course through her. "Incredible," he whispered against the side of her neck. "So responsive. Go on..."
"I want-" She sighed as he set his lips to the hardened peak of one breast again. "I want... I want you," she said, and, in that moment, the words, so utterly simple in the face of the roiling emotions that coursed through her, seemed enough.
He moved his fingers firmly, deftly against her, and she gasped. "Do you want me here, Empress?"
She closed her eyes in embarrassment, biting her lower lip.
"Are you aching for me here?"
She nodded. "Yes."
"Poor, sweet love. — Sarah MacLean

The 1920s was a great time for reading altogether - very possibly the peak decade for reading in American life. Soon it would be overtaken by the passive distractions of radio, but for the moment reading remained most people's principal method for filling idle time. — Bill Bryson

My approach to photograph is kept simple, almost routine. All work, good and bad, is documented. I use standard film, a standard lens and no filters. Each work grows, strays, decays-integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows at its height, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is an intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expresses in the image. Process and decay are implicit. — Andy Goldsworthy

I figure that if there's a heaven, then there's a room in heaven where you can look over all of history and be anyone you want to be, at a peak moment in their lives. For example, I always say I would choose to be one of Stevie Wonder's backup singers on the "Innervisions" album. — Cintra Wilson

The one thread that was most surprising and most consistent was the lack of fear that people felt at the worst moment. They felt a lot of fear in early stages, when they're just realizing what's happening. But then things really seemed to be at their peak of terror, the fear went away. You can imagine why that's useful. At that moment your brain needs to focus all its attention on surviving, so people will feel a sense of calm as their brain tries to sort out a plan. — Amanda Ripley

The rock has split, the egg has hatched, the prismatically plumed bird of life has escaped from its cage. It spreads its wings and is perched now on the peak of the huge African mountain Kilimanjaro.
Strange recompense, in the depths of our despair at the unfathomable mist into which all mankind is plunging, a curious force awakens. It is Hope long asleep, aroused once more. Wilson has taken an army of advisers and sailed for England. The ship has sunk. But the men are all good swimmers. They take the women on their shoulders and buoyed on by the inspiration of the moment they churn the free seas with their sinewy arms, like Ulysses, landing all along the European seaboard.
Yes, hope has awakened once more in men's hearts. It is NEW! Let us go forward!
The imagination, freed from the handcuffs of "Art", takes the lead! Her Feet are bare and not too delicate. In fact those who come behind her have much to think of. Hm. Let it pass. — William Carlos Williams

Schedule in rest in any pursuit. There's always another peak, but look back and admire the view for a moment. You have to actually practice that - it's a balance. — Christy Haubegger

When you see the truth for the first time, it is what people call a peak moment, or a moment of clarity. You get a larger percentage of what each moment of life actually contains; you are filled with life. Your mind is the gatekeeper of life, and sometimes it lets a little true life in, but most of the time it does not.

Without the mind blocking life, you receive all of life, true life, and reflect it all back out.

Seeing Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon for the first time is a peak moment for most people. Why does it make you feel so alive? Nothing really happens to you. Why doesn't it feel as good the second time you see it? You are seeing the same thing. The reason is, your mind opens up when something is special.

The truth is, every moment of life is special, and you can be completely open to life most of the time. You have to see the truth to see true life. — Michael Smith

Love is an act of faith and its face should always be covered in mystery. Every moment should be lived with feeling and emotion because if we try to decipher it and understand it, the magic disappears. We follow its winding and luminous paths, we let ourselves go to the highest peak or the deepest seas, but we trust in the hand that leads us. If we do not allow ourselves to be frightened, we will always awaken in a palace; if we fear the steps that will be required by love and want to reveal everything to us, the result is that we will be left with nothing. — Paulo Coelho

Frankly, seeing my plays with an audience is something I do with gritted teeth; I find the experience very difficult. I love the moment when you have just the dress rehearsal, when no one's there; that's kind of the peak to me. When people start filing in, I like to file out. — Richard Greenberg

The party was at its peak and everyone was taking full advantage of the moment. Each lady had her eye on a certain marked beau. Elegant women conversed with eligible men, handsome and well bred. Ruby felt sorry for the under-endowed ladies and plain girls, who stood together in a small group with their mothers. Passing by the conniving little circle, she heard too clearly the strategies they had concocted. They were like vultures hunting for rotten meat. Mothers sent out their girls to meet the wealthiest and nearly deceased men of the ton. — Jettie Necole

Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-conciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make. — Bruce Lee

A compassionate willingess is required - as is the courage to live before the fact, before the understanding, before any rational support or certainty, to live the moment to its natural peak and conclusion, and to accept with dignity whatever joy, grief, misfortune, or unexpectedness occurs. — Clark Moustakas

Charles asked me to stay here, she said, rather than confronting Hosteen with his lie. "You aren't my Alpha-and even if you were, he can't make me do anything, either." She tappef herself in the chest with one of her needles and half sang, "Omega. Me." Dropping into her own voice she said, "As an Omega wolf, I don't have the urge to obey you. At all. Not even the tiniest bit. Don't worry, it makes the Merrick crazy too. — Patricia Briggs

Every moment of your experience is the peak of life experience. This is where your powerful now is. — Esther Hicks

Rock and Roll does have its limits as far as the aging process. You want to go out there and play while you're at your peak, right? I think that's encouraging us to keep going out on the road - to maximize the playing at the moment. — Geddy Lee

Mastery requires endurance. Mastery, a word we don't use often, is not the equivalent of what we might consider its cognate - perfectionism - an inhuman aim motivated by a concern with how others view us. Mastery is also not the same as success - an event-based victory based on a peak point, a punctuated moment in time. Mastery is not merely a commitment to a goal, but to a curved-line, constant pursuit. — Sarah Lewis

What I want to avoid is staying at the same place. As I improve in skills, musical interpretations, and acting, I am able to approach each element of my programs with perfection. As Im preparing, I build momentum and confidence until I reach a peak of concentration. It is the moment that I feel my best. Then I can bring out one hundred percent, which makes me satisfied with myself. This is my goal. — Yuna

Recognize things when they are at their best, in their season, and know how to enjoy them then. The works of nature all amount to a peak of perfection; up to it they wax, beyond it they wane. Only in matters of art have a few gone to the point where they might not be improved. It is the mark of cultivated taste to enjoy everything at its best. But all may not do this, and not all who may, know how. Even the fruits of the spirit have their moment of ripeness, and it is well to recognize this, in order to value it properly and attend to it. — Baltasar Gracian

The public so often want to freeze the artist in a moment in time when they were at their peak, and they want the artist to revisit it over and over again as if it was something authentic. — David Sylvian

Zen brings creativity. And remember, if you want to be one with the creator, you will have to learn some ways of creativity. The only way to be one with the creator is to be in some moment of creativity, when you are lost. The potter is lost in making his pottery; the potter is lost while working on the wheel. The painter is lost while painting. The dancer is lost; there is no dancer, only the dance remains. Those are the peak moments, where you touch God, where God touches you. — Rajneesh

Synchronicities, epiphanies, peak, and mystical experiences are all cases in which creativity breaks through the barriers of the self and allows awareness to flood through the whole domain of consciousness. It is the human mind operating, for a moment, in its true order and moving through orders of increasing subtlety, reaching past the source of mind and matter into creativity itself. — F. David Peat

I meditate for the last time on this mountain that is bare, though others all around are white with snow. Like the bare peak of the koan, this one is not different from myself. I know this mountain because I am this mountain, I can feel it breathing at this moment, as its grass tops stray against the snows. If the snow leopard should leap from the rock above and manifest itself before me - S-A-A-O! - then in that moment of pure fright, out of my wits, I might truly perceive it, and be free. — Peter Matthiessen

A soccer game is a Wagner opera. The narrative sets up, the tension builds, the music ebbs and flows, the strings, the horns, more tension, and suddenly a moment of pure bliss, trumpet-tongued Gabriel sings, and gods descend from Olympus to dance - this peak of ecstasy. — Rabih Alameddine

He'd heard many songs in his life, sang thousands of them himself, but the sweetest music imaginable played for him in that moment: the sound of Sophie - the woman of his dreams - calling out his name, over and over again as together they reached their peak. — Jess Dee

How to describe the excitement I felt when I saw this beautiful work and realized its potential? I guess it's like when, after a long journey, suddenly a mountain peak comes in full view. You catch your breath, take in its majestic beauty, and all you can say is "Wow!" It's the moment of revelation. You have not yet reached the summit, you don't even know yet what obstacles lie ahead, but its allure is irresistible, and you already imagine yourself at the top. It's yours to conquer now. But do you have the strength and stamina to do it? — Edward Frenkel

It's strange, isn't it, how you never know you're living the best time of your life at the moment you're living it? If you could appreciate, at that instant, that this is it, maybe you'd make certain your mind imprinted every detail of the sights, smells, sounds and sensations.
Then again, maybe knowing that life will only get duller, sadder, less hopeful afterward would inject melancholy into that moment. You'd miss life's peak experience by mourning it before it passes.
So perhaps it's best not to know. — Anita Bartholomew

It's a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on ... it's all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it 'Jumping the Shark.' From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same. — Jon Hein

You begin to cry and writhe and yell and then to keep on crying; and finally, grief ends up giving you the two best gifts: softness and illumination. Every — Anne Lamott

While she spent her time in correspondence, Laurin spent her free time with Albert.
Neither Laurin nor Albert, or anyone else inside the keep for that matter , could quite understand the appeal that Josephine and Graeme found in writing.
"Do ye plan on marryin ' the man through letters?" Laurin asked when she had returned from the evening meal. "Mayhap ye want to marry him by proxy."
Josephine simply shook her head and smiled as she went back to writing yet another letter to Graeme.
"How will ye consummate yer marriage?" Laurin asked. "Will ye do that by proxy as well?"
Josephine's face burned a brilliant shade of red as she looked away. She was at that moment responding to a question Graeme had posed on that very topic.
Laurin shook her head and threw up her hands in defeat . "I am goin' to bed."
Josephine returned to her letter. — Suzan Tisdale