Quotes & Sayings About Respite

She inhaled again. 'You made it rain,' she said softly, delighted.
'Everyone needs a respite from the sun. — Kathleen Tessaro

It hurt, remembering. Hurt because there was so much I'd done, so much I'd yet to do. In so many different ways, I now realized, not remembering had been a blessing. A brief respite in the twisted bloody mess that my life had become.
But at least I knew who I was. — Keri Arthur

There have been days when I sought respite from my life, only to find myself calling every hour to check on it. — Robert Breault

Music furnishes a delightful recreation for the hours of respite from the cares of the day, and lasts us through life. — Thomas Jefferson

In particular, all the work of it gave her a short respite — Nora Roberts

Wearied with the commonplaces of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. The enigmas of the symbolists and the ecstasies of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its diverting novelty and appeal. Only the somber philosophy of the decadents could help us, and this we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diablism of our penetrations. Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that detestable course which even in my present fear I mention with shame and timidity
that hideous extremity of human outrage, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. — H.P. Lovecraft

I am proud to have been in a business that gives pleasure, creates beauty, and awakens our conscience, arouses compassion, and perhaps most importantly, gives millions a respite from our so violent world. — Audrey Hepburn

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee
by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite
respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quothe the Raven, "Nevermore. — Edgar Allan Poe

It is utterly exhausting being Black in America - physically, mentally, and emotionally. While many minority groups and women feel similar stress, there is no respite or escape from your badge of color. — Marian Wright Edelman

Suddenly exhausted, she closes her eyes and slips into nightmares again. Graveyards rising out of the ocean. Her friends' corpses in the light of their burning school. Skeletons ripping open men's chests and crawling inside. She endures it patiently, waiting for the horror film to end and the theater to go dark, those precious few hours of blackout that are her only respite. — Isaac Marion

The only good thing about religion is the music. Because nature is filled with balances and opposites, there are always exceptions to the overall rules, whether the overall rules are bleak or otherwise. If you propound a joyous theory of existence, I will find an exception to that. If I propound a bleak theory, someone will find a joyous exception. That's just nature being nature, I think, and I don't think it offers a lot of hope. It's sort of a respite along the way. — George Carlin

I liked books - the respite and privacy of them - books about plants and the formation of ice and the business of world wars. Whenever I sank into them I felt free. — Tim Winton

And therefore as soon as the storm began to assuage of his fury (which was a long half hour) willing to give his men no longer leisure to demur of those doubts, nor yet allow the enemy farther respite to gather themselves together, he stept forward commanding his brother, with JOHN OXNAM and the company appointed them, to break the King's Treasure house: the — Charles Eliot

Not the labors of my hands
Can fulfill thy Law's demands:
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for Sin could not atone:
Thou must save, and Thou alone! — Augustus Toplady

What if culture itself is nothing but a halt, a break, a respite, in the pursuit of barbarity? — Slavoj Zizek

Give yourself more opportunities for privacy, when you are not bombarded with duties and obligations. Privacy is not a rejection of those you love; it is your deserved respite for recharging your batteries. — Wayne Dyer

Love is an incurable malady like those pathetic states in which rheumatism affords the sufferer a brief respite only to be replaced by epileptiform headaches. — Marcel Proust

Without a doubt, the warming of the past 100 years has been a welcome respite from a long and deadly Little Ice Age. The possibility that humans may have contributed to the recent warming does not make it any less welcome. — James Taylor

After all, a life without living was simply a death without dying. What more was there to fear or hate but life, endless life, with no respite?
(Sin) — Santino Hassell

Over and over we lose this sense of feeling we are wholly in our skins by means already named as well as through extended duress. Those who toil too long without respite are also at risk. The soulskin vanishes when we are not paying attention to what we are really doing and particularly the cost to us."
"We lose the soulskin by becoming too involved with ego, by being too exacting, perfectionistic, or unnecessarily martyred, or driven by a blind ambition, or by being dissatisfied - about self, family, community, culture, world - and not saying or doing anything about it, or by pretending we are an ending source for others, or by not doing all we can to help ourselves. Oh, there are as many ways to lose the soul skin as there are women in the world."
"The only way to hold on to this sensual soulskin is to retain an exquisitely pristine consciousness about its value and uses. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

When an entire segment of the world is burned and reduced to a lawless battleground for thugs and mercenaries, a land where government does not exist, where the slate of history is being wiped out and hope has drowned in gallons of innocent blood, the only respite comes in the form of the open seas and what lies beyond the horizon. So ships are boarded and pain is tolerated just a little while longer. — Aysha Taryam

There was the horror of morning, underslept, feeling she was on the precipice of something that felt like mono, the day already galloping away from her, her chasing on foot, carrying her boots. Then the brief upward respite after a second cup of coffee, when all seemed possible, when — Dave Eggers

I talked about places, about the ways that we often talk about love of place, by which we mean our love for places, but seldom of how the places love us back, of what they give us. They give us continuity, something to return to, and offer a familiarity that allows some portion of our lives to remain connected and coherent ... And distant places give us refuge in territories where our own histories aren't so deeply entrenched and we can imagine other stories, other selves, or just drink up quiet and respite. — Rebecca Solnit

I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works
that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.
Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,
and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.
Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and
the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.
A Moments Indulgence
Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing
dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure. — Rabindranath Tagore

Frequently what we say is rest is merely laziness. Our body requires respite and so does our mind and spirit. But a person should never rest because of a laziness which arises from the evil nature in his emotion. How often laziness and emotional distaste for work join to employ physical fatigue as a cover-up. — Watchman Nee

And sitting there against the wall, listening to Billy's inhalations and exhalations, and watching the light in the glass and through the glass, Cleve knew without doubt that even if he escaped this trap, it was only a temporary respite; that this long night, its minutes, its hours, were a foretaste of a longer vigil. He almost despaired then; felt his soul sink into a hole from which there seemed to be no hope of retrieval. Here was the real world; he wept. Not joy, not light, not looking forward; only this waiting in ignorance, without hope, even of fear, for fear came only to those with dreams to lose. — Clive Barker

Some say men continually war against circumstances, but I say they perpetually flee. What are the works of men if not a momentary respite, a hiding place soon to be discovered by catastrophe? Life is endless flight before the hunter we call the world. - EKYANNUS VIII, 111 APHORISMS Spring, — R. Scott Bakker

Sometimes such simple acts, which could not be rushed and took up a fixed amount of necessary time, were a respite from more lasting uncertainties and preoccupations. If he could concentrate more upon such manageable tasks (making this cocoa, looking after his wife, feeding his child, or teaching his dog to fetch a ball) then ideas, and even solutions, might come unbidden; thoughts that could make him a better priest, a kinder husband, — James Runcie

Even sleep offered no respite from my mental disorders. There was Nightmare Disorder, which is diagnosed when the sufferer dreams of being "pursued or declared a failure." All my nightmares involve someone chasing me down the street while yelling, "You're a failure! — Jon Ronson

My fave routine is The Roller Coaster. First of all it's a great way to get into a card trick, without stating it's a card trick. The routine is so brilliantly structured as to at first, intrigue, psychologically unsettle and then blow away your audience. An extra bonus is that it will hopefully create a welcome respite from bloody invisible deck routines. Worth the price of the book. — Steve Valentine

And that's what is so insidious about talk. Anyone can talk about himself or herself. Even a child knows how to gossip and chatter. Most people are decent at hype and sales. So what is scarce and rare? Silence. The ability to deliberately keep yourself out of the conversation and subsist without its validation. Silence is the respite of the confident and the strong. — Ryan Holiday

Sartre felt that Hell is other people, but precisely the opposite is true. Hell is being left alone forever with no other reality than your own consciousness of yourself. It is being locked in a casket of your own internal chaos with no hope of a window, or door leading in light from outside to give you a moment's respite from yourself. Hell is the refusal of the gift of the other. — John Eldredge

Unquestioning automatons
blindly marching to the beat -
an eerie crunching sound
hoards of shuffling feet ...
(from silent moments) — Muse

There had been no pain or death on Lacuna, no suffering. There was only the cycle. His mother had taught her children that an Ezri would never experience death in the way humans understood it, their bodies were only laid to rest, a short respite before they returned in another form to fulfill their timeline. The — A.M. Daily

We must all allow ourselves the fantasy of projection from time to time, a chance to clothe ourselves in the imaginary gowns and tails of what has never been and never will be. This gives some polish to our tarnished lives, and sometimes we may choose one dream over another, and in the choosing find some respite from ordinary sadness. After all, we, none of us, can ever untangle the knot of fictions that make up that wobbly thing we call a self. — Siri Hustvedt

[The waves] move across a faint horizon, the rush of love and the surge of grief, the respite of peace and then fear again, the heart that beats and then lies still, the rise and fall and rise and fall of all of it, the incoming and the outgoing, the infinite procession of life. And the ocean wraps the earth, a reminder. The mysteries come forward in waves. — Susan Casey

Their only respite is in the balm of bleakness. Disdainful of the solicitations of hope, they look for sanctuary in desolate places - a scattering of ruins in a barren locale or a rubble of words in a book where someone whispers in a dry voice, "I, too, am here." However, — Thomas Ligotti

He also discovered that he was bitter and full of resentment, that he oozed resentment, and that he might easily kill someone, anyone, if it would provide a respite from the loneliness and rain and cold of Madrid, but this was a discovery that he preferred to conceal. — Roberto Bolano

Kings have no need of masks. A mask is a release from oneself, a respite.

("Thirty-Three Abominations") — Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal

Write the wrong
Wrong the right
Spite the good fight
With no respite
And set the
Literary world
Alight — Robert Black

Even if you love your current job and don't work in a hostile environment, you can still learn how to better equip yourself for when conflict and trials do come around. And believe me, sooner or later they always come around! For the devil can't stand for God's people to advance His causes without a fight. So if your present workplace isn't hostile, then thank the Lord for this wonderful respite and use it to train yourself for when you will be sitting across the boardroom from a devil in disguise. — T.D. Jakes

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

There is no time to plan, there is no space to think. No respite. No forgiveness. There is only war. — Warhammer 40 000 Source Book

Isn't that the great thing about Christmas? You get a lot of respite, time to recharge your batteries, time with family without too much else happening anywhere else in the world, time to focus on the people you love and the activities that you enjoy, time to exercise, to read. — Wayne Swan

It is this subtle dimension of understanding that marks the southwestern Indian peoples from other religions and separates tribal peoples from the world's religions. Somewhere in the planetary history religious expression changed from participation in the sound, color and rhythm of nature to the abstractions of man outside this context pleading for temporary respite and hoping in the next life to return to the Garden. — Vine Deloria Jr.

It's true, though, others won't understand me. I know that. I'm still an alien in the American Christian subculture.
Each evening I retreat from it, and I go straight to the Gospels.
It's not out of duty that I read about Jesus; it's a respite. — Brant Hansen

Retreat might give us a moment of respite but years of repentance at our weakness would, I believe, follow. — Tony Blair

It was a relief to inhabit someone else's life for a while, to get her personal issues for a brief respite. In a play, she knew exactly how all her character's problems would be resolved. No matter how the cast performed, the end turned out the same. No questions, no worries, no unknowns. — Alexandra Robbins

- and how time flies! What, has it already been twenty years, already forty years that we are together? Why, how terrible! We haven't yet said all we wanted to say to each other ... May we have a little respite, or else may we be allowed to begin all over again! — Colette

To this day, I fondly recall the challenges of building a fire, pitching a tent, climbing a New England mountain, canoeing on a lake. Camp songs still resonate inside me. Competition exists at Keewaydin, of course, but nobody fails summer camp, a nice respite from winters of fortune and misfortune at school. — Michael Eisner

Why the Albanians had created the institution of the guest, exalting it above all other human relations, even those of kinship. "Perhaps the answer lies in the democratic character of this institution," he said, setting himself to think his way through the matter. "Any ordinary man, on any day, can be raised to the lofty station of a guest. The path to that temporary deification is open to anybody at any time.[ ... ] Given that anyone at all can grasp the sceptre of the guest," he went on, "and since that sceptre, for every Albanian, surpasses even the king's sceptre, may we not assume that in the Albanian's life of danger and want, that to be a guest if only for four hours or twenty-four hours, is a kind of respite, a moment of oblivion, a truce, a reprieve, and - why not? - an escape from everyday life into some divine reality? — Ismail Kadare

I lean back against the velvet-cushioned seat and close my eyes to the sound of hooves pounding hard against the cobblestone streets. Their clip-clopping harmony keeping perfect tempo with the rumble of carriage wheels, affording a sound as sweet as any symphony I've ever heard.
It's the sound of escape
The sound of goodbye
A sound that's served to soothe me in the past, providing the much-needed assurance that the unwelcome inquiries and suspicions of newly alerted acquaintances would soon fade - allowing for a brief respite in a new location, before I'm on the move again.
I'm a gypsy.
A nomad.
A vagabond.
A drifter. — Alyson Noel

I do not wish to grow old, to outlive my illusions. Only a short respite from cares and sorrow, a brief time of flowers, and music, and love, and laughter, and ecstatic tears. — Anne Reeve Aldrich

a brief respite with the family in Cannes, he road tripped with Harvard — Amber Hunt

I like music because ... its expressive, you can convey whatever you're thinking through a song. And it's the best respite for me anyway to do it through music. So I like music because you can express and let your soul out through it. — Paolo Nutini

Happiness is never there to stay [ ... ] Happiness is merely a respite offered by inquietude. — Andre Maurois

Cordelia looked at Edric. "Which way will lead to our respite, think you?"
"I don't know, my lady," he admitted.
There was a pause.
"This way," Tania decided, heading off to the left and pulling him with her.
"Why?"
"It's downhill. — Allan Frewin Jones

There is something joyful about storms that interrupt routine. Snow or freezing rain suddenly releases you from expectations, performance demands, and the tyranny of appointments and schedules. And unlike illness, it is largely a corporate rather than individual experience. One can almost hear a unified sigh rise from the nearby city and surrounding countryside where Nature has intervened to give respite to the weary humans slogging it out within her purview. All those affected this way are united by a mutual excuse, and the heart is suddenly and unexpectedly a little giddy. There will be no apologies needed for not showing up to some commitment or other. Everyone understands and shares in this singular justification, and the sudden alleviation of the pressure to produce makes the heart merry. — Wm. Paul Young

Poetry affords us a respite in which we may gather renewed strength for the old struggle to adapt ourselves to reality. — Robert Haven Schauffler

The sicknesses of the soul have their ups and downs like those of the body; what we take to be a cure is most often merely a respite or change of disease. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Don't ya'll have anything better to do than to mess with Myles?" she asked. "Sadly, Mom, they don't," Myles said. It's the only respite they have from their monotonous, inconsequential tedium of an existence." Amir's eyes widened. "Duck, Pop! He's gonna big word us to death." Amir lifted his forearm. "Thesaurus-shields up! — Marcus Major

We've been dead for thousands and thousands of years. Dead or sleeping, depends on how you feel about it at any given moment. But that's okay. The trouble starts when you are born, then everything becomes taxing and temporary. When they pulled us into awareness, they killed us. Then we get saddled with a seven minute relay, at best. A soft limbo that's only palliative and comforting in theory. A momentary respite that's a cosmic joke of course and still resented by the divine. A petty haggling of which we weren't even a part of. When forced into an existence, we turned into the ward of all that breathes, subjected to the known universe, and though always partial to the unknown, which wasn't really found and never understood, is lost to us. — Asghar Abbas

Nothing will make me change my principles. Even with the knife at my neck I shall still declare, up to this day, the poor have done everything; it is time for the rich to take their turn ... The selfish people, the young idlers, must be made useful, whether they like it or not, and some respite be procured for the useful and respectable worker. — Jean-Paul Marat

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

God has raised his hand to give us respite. It could be he has something more in mind for us. With this time on our hands, we should try to figure out what it could be. Because HE don't do pointless acts of charity. — E.L. Doctorow

There's an unexpected lull in the traffic about two-thirds of the way to Darmstadt, and I make the mistake of breathing a sigh of relief. The respite is short-lived. One moment I'm driving along a seemingly empty road, bouncing from side to side on the Smart's town-car suspension as the hairdryersized engine howls its guts out beneath my buttocks, and the next instant the dashboard in front of me lights up like a flashbulb. — Charles Stross

Competitive rowing is an undertaking of extraordinary beauty preceded by brutal punishment. Unlike most sports, which draw primarily on particular muscle groups, rowing makes heavy and repeated use of virtually every muscle in the body, despite the fact that a rower, as Al Ulbrickson liked to put it, "scrimmages on his posterior annex." And rowing makes these muscular demands not at odd intervals but in rapid sequence, over a protracted period of time, repeatedly and without respite. On one occasion, after watching the Washington freshmen practice, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Royal Brougham marveled at the relentlessness of the — Daniel James Brown

Throughout the thirty years of our life together the authorities have given us no respite. They were after us all the time. If we published a magazine, they closed it down. If we started a project they prevented us from carrying it through. If we established an association they told us we were breaking the laws and banned its activities. Now they were driving us out of the country. — Nawal El Saadawi

I pray the gods some respite from the weary task of this long year's watch that lying on the Atreidae's roof on bended arm, dog- like, I have kept, marking the conclave of all night's stars, those potentates blazing in the heavens that bring winter and summer to mortal men, the constellations, when they wane, when they rise. — Aeschylus

But this element of failure is a very condition of his life; one can never dream of eliminating it without immediately dreaming of death. This does not mean that one should consent to failure, but rather one must consent to struggle against it without respite. — Simone De Beauvoir

In temperate zones, winter is the best insecticide; it keeps the bugs in check. The tropics enjoy no such respite, so plants there have developed a wide range of alkaloids that kill off nosy insects and animals. — Gregory Benford

Their inability to disengage from work in the evening deprives them of the only possible respite from labor, and life without some kind of rest is torture. The worst irony is that taking care of the verminous Gregor is a filthy chore. Gregor, by escaping work, has not only forced his former dependents into labor, but has become work: disgusting work that only his disgraced family can perform. — Franz Kafka

What totally different feelings did Emma take back into the house from what she had brought out!- she had then been only daring to hope for a little respite of suffering;- she was now in an exquisite site fluttering of happiness moreover as she believed must still be greater when the flutter should have passed away — Jane Austen

The town of L - represented the earth, with its sorrows and its graves left behind, yet not out of sight, nor wholly forgotten. The ocean, in everlasting but gentle agitation, and brooded over by a dove-like calm, might not unfitly typify the mind and the mood which then swayed it. For it seemed to me as if then first I stood at a distance, and aloof from the uproar of life; as if the tumult, the fever, and the strife, were suspended; a respite granted from the secret burthens of the heart; a sabbath of repose; a resting from human labours. Here were the hopes which blossom in the paths of life, reconciled with the peace which is in the grave; motions of the intellect as unwearied as the heavens, yet for all anxieties a halcyon calm: a tranquility that seemed no product of inertia, but as if resulting from mighty and equal antagonisms; infinite activities, infinite repose. — Thomas De Quincey

In [man's] mouth is ever the bittersweet taste of life and death, unknown to the trees. Without respite he is dragged by the two wild horses, memory and hope; and he is tormented by a secret that he can never tell. — Hope Mirrlees

For me, the idea of being a successful actor is hanging out with my dogs and my boy, down in Venice beach, and going, "I don't have to audition today. I've got a little respite here." — Robert Knepper

I've always hated Mondays, the whole lot of them. Too much whiplash, snapping the tired masses to attention. God's way, perhaps, of reminding us that we are not masters of our fate, no matter how deluded we became during the weekend respite. — Jonathan Hull

The physical heart, which houses the spiritual heart, beats about 100,000 times a day, pumping two gallons of blood per minute and over 100 gallons per hour. If one were to attempt to carry 100 gallons of water (whose density is lighter than blood) from one place to another, it would be an exhausting task. Yet the human heart does this every hour of every day for an entire lifetime without respite. The vascular system transporting life-giving blood is over 60,000 miles long - more than two times the circumference of the earth. So when we conceive of our blood being pumped throughout our bodies, know that this means that it travels through 60,000 miles of a closed vascular system that connects all the parts of the body - all the vital organs and living tissues - to this incredible heart. — Hamza Yusuf

It seemed now as if, touched by human penitence and all its toil, divine goodness had parted the curtain and displayed behind it, single, distinct, the hare erect; the wave falling; the boat rocking, which did we deserve them, should be ours always. But alas, divine goodness, twitching the cord, draws the curtain; it does not please him; he covers his treasures in a drench of hail, and so breaks them, so confuses them that it seems impossible that their calm should ever return or that we should ever compose from their fragments a perfect whole or read in the littered pieces the clear words of truth. For our penitence deserves a glimpse only; our toil respite only. — Virginia Woolf

Do you think you wear a mask?'

'I'm wearing one right now.' Valentino smiled softly. 'We both are.'

'It's a sad thought.'

'Yes,' he said. 'But sometimes I wonder about the alternative. Imagine if we had no secrets, no respite from the truth. What if everything was laid bare the moment we introduced ourselves? — Catherine Doyle

The candle flame is too hot. It flickers and dances in the over-warm breeze, a breeze that brings no respite from the heat. Soft gossamer wings flutter to and fro in the dark, sprinkling dusty scaled in the circle of light. I'm struggling to resist, but I'm drawn. And then it's to bright, and I am flying too close to the sun, dazzled by the light, fried and melting from the heat, weary in my endeavers to stay airborn. I am so warm. The heat ... It's stiffling, overpowering. It wakes me. — E.L. James

She would pause sometimes to listen to the sound of the water as it lightly hit the walls of the fort. This too was music to her ears; it would calm her down and give her respite from the humdrum of life — Anamika Mishra

Is a few hours of hell-raising, or respite from life's toil worth this every morning? — Catherine Lockwood

everything tried to get its living done in the brief hour of respite. It — Ray Bradbury

There are kinds of solitude that provide a respite from loneliness, a holiday if not a cure. — Olivia Laing

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil. — Rabindranath Tagore

Our society values alert, problem-solving consciousness, and it devalues all other states of consciousness. Any kind of consciousness that is not related to the production or consumption of material goods is stigmatized in our society today. Of course we accept drunkenness. We allow people some brief respite from the material grind. A society that subscribes to that model is a society that is going to condemn the states of consciousness that have nothing to do with the alert problem-solving mentality. — Graham Hancock

Tact by its nature entails staying mum, prudently electing to forgo urging other people to pursue an alternative course of action. Creation of silent spaces in our own life and equitable distribution of periods of respite that allow for periods of equable inner reflection is necessary to spur personal growth. It is equally important to honor other people's intrinsic need for periods of introspection, uninterrupted by unsolicited advice — Kilroy J. Oldster

To salve the pains of consciousness, some people anesthetize themselves with sunny thoughts. But not everyone can follow their lead, above all not those who sneer at the sun and everything upon which it beats down. Their only respite is in the balm of bleakness. Disdainful of the solicitations of hope, they look for sanctuary in desolate places - a scattering of ruins in a barren locale or a rubble of words in a book where someone whispers in a dry voice, I too am here. — Thomas Ligotti

(Until the end of their lives, these men and women would tell stories about the summer they followed Lyndon Johnson and his Flying Windmill around Texas; as Oliver Knight of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram would write about one trip, "That mad dash from Navasota to Conroe in which I dodged stumps at 70 MPH just to keep up with that contraption will ever be green in my memory.") At the landing site, there would be the brief respite — Robert A. Caro

The king lifted a hand to her cheek and kissed her. It was not a kiss between strangers, not even a kiss between a bride and groom. It was a kiss between a man and his wife, and when it was over, the king closed his eyes and rested his forehead in the hollow of the queen's shoulder, like a man seeking respite, like a man reaching home at the end of the day. — Megan Whalen Turner

A warrior of light respects the main teaching of the I Ching: 'To persevere is favourable.'
He knows that perseverance is not the same thing as insistence. There are
times when battles go on longer than necessary, draining him of strength and
enthusiasm.
At such moments, the warrior thinks: 'A prolonged war finally destroys the
victors too.'
Then he withdraws his forces from the battlefield and allows himself a
respite. He perseveres in his desire, but knows he must wait for the best moment to attack.
A warrior always returns to the fray. He never does so out of stubbornness,
but because he has noticed a change in the weather. — Paulo Coelho

There were others, such as Jack London,who offered their readers such a respite from the miserable horror of existence that their books were like gifts from the gods. (Character of Tristan Sadler in "the Absolutist") — John Boyne

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

Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Margaux was older and wiser now and knew the waves couldn't fix what was wrong in her life, but at least they might give her some temporary respite. — Shelley Noble

Something in this meadow and places like it, humble and hidden, offers respite and moments of calm for the wild, adventurous soul that plagues the boys of the world, the wanderer's soul that gnaws and aches inside of them even unto gray manhood. It is the plague of horizons, the plague of the next river bend, the plague that drives men over the vast oceans into strange lands beyond the edges of the maps. — R.W. Schmidt

The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food. — Mary Shelley

Barth observes that the seventh day does not come at the end of a week of toil and labor for human beings as though its primary purpose is to offer a measure of respite after days of toil. Rather, since "God's seventh day was man's first,"54 the seventh day sets life's priority for human beings in the most tangible way. Better yet - and much closer to the point - the seventh day brings to view God's priorities. Seeing that human time "begins with a day of rest and not a day of work,"55 the spiritual pursuit, living life in a relationship with the Creator that is mutually meaningful, stands out as the primary meaning in life. — Sigve K. Tonstad

Her writing was her only escape, her only means of survival. It was a respite from a cruel world, despite seemingly comfortable surroundings. — Danielle Steel