Short Distance Quotes & Sayings

His wounds, incidentally, must have healed up by now, he felt no handicap anymore, which was astonishing; for, as recalled, after he had nicked his finger with a knife over a month ago, the injury had still been hurting the day before yesterday. "Am I less sensitive now?" he wondered, greedily sucking at the cheese, which had promptly exerted a more emphatic attraction on him than any of the other food. His eyes watered with contentment as he gulped down the cheese, the vegetables, and the sauce in rapid succession. By contrast, he did not relish the fresh foods, he could not even stand their smells, and he actually dragged the things he wanted to eat a short distance away. — Franz Kafka

He lives hard, works hard, has but few comforts and fewer necessities. He has but little, if any, taste for reading. He enjoys a coarse practical joke or smutty story; loves danger but abhors labor of the common kind; never tires riding, never wants to walk, no matter how short the distance he desires to go. He would rather fight with pistols than pray; loves tobacco, liquor and women better than any other trinity. His life borders nearly upon that of an Indian. If he reads anything, it is in most cases a blood and thunder story of sensational style. He enjoys his pipe, and relishes a practical joke on comrades, or a corrupt tale, wherein abounds much vulgarity and animal propensity. — Joseph Mccoy

But I return to that terrible statement of Bertrand Russell's: "Better Red than dead." Why did he not say it would be better to be brown than dead? There is no difference. All my life and the life of my generation, the life of those who share my views, we all have had one viewpoint: Better to be dead than to be a scoundrel. In this horrible expression of Bertrand Russell's there is an absence of all moral criteria. Looked at from a short distance, these words allow one to maneuver and to continue to enjoy life. But from a long term point of view it will undoubtedly destroy those people who think like that. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The world does not wish to be saved. It carries us a short distance and drops us when it's done with us. — Eleanor Morse

Of the three things that most people know about the horse, the third is that, over a short distance, it can't run as fast as a man. As Rincewind had learned to his advantage, it has more legs to sort out. — Terry Pratchett

I love you sons of bitches. You're all I read any more. You're the only ones who'll talk all about the really terrific changes going on, the only ones crazy enough to know that life is a space voyage, and not a short one, either, but one that'll last for billions of years. You're the only ones with guts enough to really care about the future, who really notice what machines do to us, what wars do to us, what cities do to us, what big, simple ideas do to us, what tremendous misunderstanding, mistakes, accidents, catastrophes do to us. You're the only ones zany enough to agonize over time and distance without limit, over mysteries that will never die, over the fact that we are right now determining whether the space voyage for the next billion years or so is going to be Heaven or Hell. — Kurt Vonnegut

Night had fallen, and Diane admired the deep sky behind Steve's calm countenance. They looked into each other's eyes again and felt the spark and excitement of discovery. As if to celebrate the perfect, life-enabling distance of the earth from the sun, Diane and Steve kissed again."
"-The Grand Unified Story (a Short Story) from Stories and Scripts: an Anthology — Zack Love

Photography mirrored the [nineteenth century] will towards rigor, towards defining details, the need for miniscule description, the long-distance optics, for technology at the service of truth, for concepts of credibility, of objectivity, the need to archive, for the consolidation of institutions like the museum, in short, towards a need to control memory ... — Joan Fontcuberta

How much any of those factors is present in your swing is entirely dependent on the length of your backswing. Indeed, if you are like most people, you will be short of horizontal - and there is nothing wrong with that, as long as you are on plane. There is no rule that says you have to get the club all the way back to horizontal. Besides, the length of your arc is not how long your backswing is relative to horizontal; it is measured by the distance that the clubhead travels throughout the swing, so you can still have a big arc without getting all the way back to horizontal. — Hank Haney

The child came to a stop beside her mother and stared up at her face as if she had never seen it before. It was the face of the new misery she felt, but on her mother it looked old and it looked as if it might have belonged to anybody, a Negro or a European or to Powell himself. The child turned her head quickly, and past the Negroe's ambling figures she could see the column of smoke rising and widening unchecked inside the granite line of trees. She stood taut, listening, and could just catch in the distance a few wild high shrieks of joy as if the prophets were dancing in the fiery furnace, in the circle the angel had cleared for them. — Flannery O'Connor

There were a great many other such tableaux. As Martial had predicted, bears featured prominently in most of them. A temple thief was made to reenact the role of the robber Laureolus, made famous by the ancient plays of Ennius and Naevius; he was nailed to a cross and then subjected to the attack of the bears. A freedman who had killed his former master was made to put on a Greek chlamys and go walking though a stage forest populated by cavorting satyrs and nymphs, like Orpheus lost in the woods; when one of the satyrs played a shrill tune on his pipes, the trees dispersed and the man was subject to an attack by bears. An arsonist was made to strap on wings in imitation of Daedalus, ascend a high platform, and then leap off; the wings actually carried him aloft for a short distance, a remarkable sight, until he plunged into an enclosure full of bears and was torn to pieces. — Steven Saylor

One of the chief reasons for the widespread fear of the Huns rested on their ability to travel very long distances in relatively short periods. This ability may well have been based on their use of horseshoes. — Carroll Quigley

The distance between the limousine and the gutter is a short one. — Kinky Friedman

That man is not yet a finished creation but rather a challenge of the spirit; a distant possibility dreaded as much as it is desired; that the way towards it has only been covered for a short distance and with terrible agonies and ecstasies even by those few for whom it is the scaffold today and the monument tomorrow - all this the Steppenwolf, too, suspected. — Hermann Hesse

As an inmate of a concentration camp, Corrie Ten Boom heard a commotion, and saw a short distance away a prison guard mercilessly beating a female prisoner. "What can we do for these people?" Corrie whispered. "Show them that love is greater," Betsie replied. In that moment, Corrie realized her sister's focus was on the prison guard, not the victim she was watching. Betsie saw the world through a different lens. She considered the actions of greatest moral gravity to be the ones we originate, not the ones we suffer. — Terryl L. Givens

merrymaking. Yes, Katie would enjoy America, Frances thought as she put on her coat and her hat; in fact, America would enjoy Katie. She left her apartment block and, crossing the road, walked the short distance to the Ninth Avenue Elevated line at South Ferry. Although the elevated line took longer, she preferred not to take the subway system, being slightly claustrophobic. The idea of speeding along in a small underground train made her feel dizzy, so she preferred to travel aboveground by the El for her day of work as a domestic at the Walker-Browns' residence. As she took her familiar journey north that morning, along Greenwich Street and Battery Place to Gansevoort Street in lower Manhattan and on to Ninth Avenue — Hazel Gaynor

Horne Fisher had in him something of the aristocrat, which is very near to the anarchist. It was characteristic of him that he turned into this dark and irregular entry as casually as into his own front door, merely thinking that it would be a short cut to the house. He made his way through the dim wood for some distance and with some difficulty, until there began to shine through the trees a level light, in lines of silver, which he did not at first understand. The next moment he had come out into the daylight at the top of a steep bank, at the bottom of which a path ran round the rim of a large ornamental lake. — G.K. Chesterton

On a boat cruising down east, sardines are scooped out of the holding seine at Eastport at dawn. 'Sardines' may be any of several species of fish; in Maine they are usually small herring. Fish are penned in nets until the boats are ready to load. The fish are taken a short distance to canneries which work round the clock, according to the time of the catch. — Luis Marden

He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances. He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a verb in the past tense. — James Joyce

Distance is something you can control; meeting your soulmate in the short span of a lifetime is something you can't — Morgan Parker

I invited Onyx to be my plus one. Of course she was all in when I added that Grandma A had a massive swimming pool and was within a short driving distance to a two-story bookstore. — K.R. Grace

Later, it would take me a minute to remember how exactly it happened. If I turned around and moved forward first, or he did. I just knew we didn't meet halfway. It was just a short distance really, not worth squabbling over. And maybe it didn't matter so much whether he took the step or I did. All I knew was that he was there. — Sarah Dessen

In a proud fatherly sadomasicisticly way, I am thrilled when I get hit. As every deep purple bruise on my body represented a perfect swing.
If I were to lift my shirt at any time there would be 4-5 bruises on my body ...
As soon as I was able to, I would throw batting practice again from the short distance, and take another shot if necessary to keep the boys in the zone. — JohnA Passaro

It is a little known but true fact that a two-legged creature can usually beat a four-legged creature over a short distance, simply because of the time it takes the quadruped to get its legs sorted out. — Terry Pratchett

Sam stood on the second floor veranda of the hotel, across from the pool, and looked out spotting Claire. His heart took a tiny leap in his chest when he first caught sight of her in the crowd around the pool, he zeroed in on her face instantly, like a computer program scanning faces. Her almond-shaped brown eyes captivated him, even at the great distance. When she stood up from the lounger, he instinctively reached down for the railing to grab on to something. It was the first time he'd seen her in a bathing suit. Wow. She looked lovely. Her exposed cafe latte colored skin glowed. Purple was her color, and it showcased her small, but curvy body the one he'd held tightly just a few short hours ago. — Carolyn Gibbs

A look at the past reminds us of how great is the distance, and how short, over which we have come. The past makes us ask what we have done with us. It makes us ask whether our very achievements are not ironical counterpoint and contrast to our fundamental failures. — Robert Penn Warren

When my son David was a high school senior in 2003, his graduating class went on a camping trip in the desert. A creative writing educator visited the camp and led the group through an exercise designed to develop their sensitivity and imaginations. Each student was given a pen, a notebook, a candle, and matches. They were told to walk a short distance into the desert, sit down alone, and "discover themselves." The girls followed instructions. The boys, baffled by the assignment, gathered together, threw the notebooks into a pile, lit them with the matches, and made a little bonfire. — Christina Hoff Sommers

It depends entirely upon what is meant by being truly great. But the long and the short of the matter is, that men must stick to a thing if they want to succeed in it - not giving way to over-much admiration for the flowers they see growing in other people's borders; which I am afraid has been my case.' He looked into the far distance and paused. — Thomas Hardy

I know," Aren says. "But I wanted to apologize. I don't want Taltrayn to convince you I'm the bad guy."
At that, I give a short laugh. "You are the bad guy, Aren."
He frowns, and I realize he's taking my words the wrong way.
"What I mean is you're the . . . well, the rebel. Kyol's the good guy. He's made mistakes, yes, but he loves me."
He cocks his head to the side. His gaze makes my skin tingle. The step he takes toward me is hesitant, careful, and when his silver eyes peer down at me, I stop breathing. His lips are so close. I remember the way they felt pressed against mine. I remember his taste, the heat of his edarratae.
The smallest distance separates us when he whispers, "You don't think I'm in love with you?"
"I . . . — Sandy Williams

Our senses perceive no extreme. Too much sound deafens us; too much light dazzles us; too great distance or proximity hinders ourview. Too great length and too great brevity of discourse tends to obscurity; too much truth is paralyzing ... In short, extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. — Blaise Pascal

He had always admired his colleagues in the life and earth sciences who could hit the road on short notice with a fully stocked backpack and live rugged adventuresome lives in exotic locales. But he had admired them from a distance. — Neal Stephenson

The bishop escorted Francis a short distance out into the courtyard. Bending over, he said to him in a hushed voice, "careful Francis. You're overdoing it."
"That's how one finds God, Bishop." Francis answered.
The bishop shook his head. "Even virtue needs moderation; otherwise it can become arrogance."
"Man stands within the bounds of moderation; God stands outside them. I am heading for God, Bishop." said Francis, and he proceeded hastily towards the street door. He had no time to lose. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Every word, every gesture is now loaded with ambiguity, nothing can be taken at face value. We speak to each other from a safe distance, pretending all the years we soaped each other's backs and pissed in front of each other never happened. We don't use any of the baby talk, code words, or short hand gestures that had been our language of intimacy, the proof that we belonged to each other. — Amy Tan

Grant leaned forward, covering the short distance between them so that their lips were a fraction apart. His warm breath tickled her face, making heat pool between her legs.

"I don't want to take advantage of you," he said so softly it took a moment for her to register his words. — Katie Reus

I look out on my language, two days later
A short absence is enough
for Aeschylus to open the door to peace
a short speech is enough
for Antonio to incite war
A hand of a woman in my hand
is enough
to embrace my freedom
and for the ebb and flow to begin anew in my body
(I See my Ghost Coming from a Distance) — Mahmoud Darwish

A short distance away is the Tidal Basin, ringed by cherry trees that every year produce flowers, an event to which Washingtonians react as though it were the Second Coming of Christ. — Dave Barry

There is growing awareness of the beauty of country ... a sincere desire to keep some of it for all time. People are beginning to value highly the fact that a river runs unimpeded for a distance ... They are beginning to obtain deep satisfaction from the fact that a herd of elk may be observed in back country, on ancestral ranges, where the Indians once hunted them. They are beginning to seek the healing relaxation that is possible in wild country. In short, they want it. — Olaus Murie

I don't want to suggest that I was listening to or even overhearing the conversation the two of you were having. I am not the sort of man to eavesdrop. I would say, however, your words did seem almost to float on the air from your table across to my own, which in any case is a short distance, and, having arrived, they were, I would say, impossible not to hear, just as one would have no choice whether to hear a car backfire, or a bird sing. Very difficult not to hear, if one can hear, if one has ears; it's involuntary, you see. We hear things whether we want to or not, and in this way the words you were speaking to one another entered my ears — Daniel Wallace

I'm more of a sprinter than a marathoner when it comes to many aspects of life. For example, when I'm running. Over short distances
up to two yards
I can run faster than cheap panty hose on an itchy porcupine. But over long distances, I'm not so impressive.
I try to compensate for my lack of long-distance endurance by having good form. I'm told that my running style is quite majestic. That's probably because I learned to run by watching nature films in which leopards chased frightened zebras. Now when I run, I open my eyes real wide and let my tongue slap the side of my face. If you saw it, you'd be saying, "That's very majestic." And then you'd run like a frightened zebra. That's why my homeowners association voted to ask me to do my jogging with a pillowcase over my head. — Scott Adams

A foreigner is an individual who is considered either comic or sinister. When the victim of a disaster - preferably natural but sometimes political -the foreigner may also be pitied from a distance for a short period of time. — John Ralston Saul

I like the stroke seat. I want to be there. I want to have the race come down to a short distance and be the person to make the difference. I can't stand to be behind and I don't want to lose. — Chris Ahrens

I am excessively fond of a cottage; there is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself down at any time, and collect a few friends about me and be happy. I advise everybody who is going to build, to build a cottage. — Jane Austen

I see so, so many novels written by people who are obviously short story writers. What they end up doing, it's going the full distance, covering three hundred pages or so, but they do it by just writing five or six long stories, and weaving them together, making them interdependent. — Stephen Graham Jones

life is not about distance , it's about direction — Divya Prakash Dubey

The Romans formed a line of mantlets and constructed a siege terrace. When they began to erect a siege tower at some distance, the defenders on the wall at first made abusive remarks and ridiculed the idea of setting up such a huge apparatus so far away. Did those pygmy Romans, they asked, with their feeble hands and muscles, imagine that they could mount such a heavy tower on top of a wall? (All the Gauls are inclined to be contemptuous of our short stature, contrasting it with their own great height.) 31. But when they saw the tower in motion and approaching the fortress walls, the strange, unfamiliar spectacle frightened them into sending envoys to ask Caesar for peace. The envoys said they were forced to the conclusion that the Romans had divine aid in their warlike operations, since they could move up apparatus of such height at such a speed. — Gaius Iulius Caesar

In the world of movie personalities the distance between popularity and politics is short. — Shirley Temple

Will you destroy something in order to make it beautiful?
Will you avoid something in order to fall in love with it?
Will you sacrifice something just so that you get it?
Will you maintain distance from someone in order to get him close?
We often make these mistakes.
Life is short, every second counts, every moment is precious.
Live at, live for and live always in present, for thats what you have right now with you, who knows what will tomorrow bring. — Hanif Hassan Barbhuiya

I took a step. And then another. And so it went as we followed Father, who had come to take us forever away from Salem. And with every step I thought of my mother's courage as she faced her judges. With every step I thought of her cleaving to the truth even as she fell the short distance of the rope. With every step I thought of her pride, her strength, her love.
And with every step I thought, I am my mother's daughter, I am my mother's daughter ... — Kathleen Kent

For hours, they wrote back and forth, a conversation punctuated by short periods of waiting, where Lucy held her breath and kept watch over her phone, resenting the constraints of technology, the limits of distance. — Jennifer E. Smith

Over time as an actor, your life with a project can be so short lived because you come on, you do it, and then you're done. You have no control, no say, and all of a sudden there's all of this distance between the work you've put into something and the product as you see it appear on-screen. — Maggie Siff

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a wise and intuitive counselor available 24/7? You're in luck-you already have one. Your body! Our bodies carry ancient wisdom. We literally live within a temple of intuitive and instinctive wisdom. Sometimes we pay attention and access body wisdom; but unfortunately, the aphorism "Mrs. Smith lived a short distance from her body" is sadly true for many of us. — Sue Thoele

Do you know what two centimeters is?
Yeah. It's a measurement.
It's about three quarters of an inch.
All right.
That's the distance that round missed your liver by.
Is that what the doctor told you?
Yes. You know what the liver does?
No.
It keeps you alive. Do you know who the man is who shot you?
Maybe he didnt shoot me. Maybe it was one of the Mexicans.
Do you know who the man is?
No. Am I supposed to?
Becase he's not somebody you really want to know. The people he meets tend to have very short futures. Nonexistent, in fact.
Well good for him. — Cormac McCarthy

The way to get through anything mentally painful is to take it a little at a time. The mind can't handle dealing with a massive iceberg of pain in front of it, but it can deal with short nuggets that will come to an end. So instead of thinking, Ugh, I've got twenty-four miles to go, focus on making it to the next telephone pole in the distance. Whether you're running twenty or one hundred and twenty miles at a time, the distance has to be tackled mentally and physically one mile at a time. The ability to compartmentalize pain into these small bite sizes is key. — Joe De Sena

Oh! my dearest love, why are our pleasures so short and so interrupted? How long is this to last?
Know you, my best Mary, that I feel myself, in your absence, almost degraded to the level of the vulgar and impure. I feel their vacant, stiff eyeballs fixed upon me, until I seem to have been infected with their loathsome meaning
to inhale a sickness that subdues me to languor. Oh! those redeeming eyes of Mary, that they might beam upon me before I sleep! Praise my forbearance
oh! beloved one
that I do not rashly fly to you, and at least secure a moment's bliss. Wherefore should I delay; do you not long to meet me? All that is exalted and buoyant in my nature urges me towards you, reproaches me with the cold delay, laughs at all fear and spurns to dream of prudence. Why am I not with you? — Michael Kelahan

Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body. — James Joyce

Q: Why don't boys talk?
A: Boys do talk! You watch a group of them from a distance you will see that their lips are moving. They are probably making hand gestures as well. But what are they talking about?
I do my hare of talking with my guy friends, but I have no idea what we talk bout. guys have absolutely no short-term memory for conversations. This is why a girl can have a long, heart-to-heart talk with her sweetie, and the next day she makes some reference to what they talked about, and he looks at her with utter incomprehension and says, "Huh?"
The reason for this forgetfulness is that guys almost never anything in conversation that is worth remembering. — Pete Hautman

When you cleaned out this house of anything valuable," Harry began, but Mundungus interrupted him again.
"Sirius never cared about any of the junk--"
There was the sound of pattering feet, a blaze of shining copper, an echoing clang, and a shriek of agony: Kreacher had taken a run at Mundungus and hit him over the head with a saucepan.
"Call 'im off, call 'im off, 'e should be locked up!" screamed Mundungus, cowering as Kreacher raised the heavy-bottomed pan again.
"Kreacher, no!" shouted Harry.
Kreacher's thin arms trembled with the weight of the pan, still held aloft.
"Perhaps just once more, Master Harry, for luck?"
Ron laughed.
"We need him conscious, Kreacher, but if he needs persuading you can do the honors," said Harry.
"Thank you very much, Master," said Kreacher with a bow, and he retreated a short distance, his great pale eyes still fixed upon Mundungus with loathing. — J.K. Rowling

When Tommy walked forlornly home a short while later, Rudy tried what appeared to be a masterful new tactic.
Pity.
On the step, he perused the mud that had dried as a crusty sheet on his uniform, then looked Liesel hopelessly in
the face. "What about it, Saumensch?"
"What about what?"
"You know ... "
Liesel responded in the usual fashion.
"Saukerl," she laughed, and she walked the short distance home. A disconcerting mixture of mud and pity was
one thing, but kissing Rudy Steiner was something entirely different.
Smiling sadly on the step, he called out, rummaging a hand through his hair. "One day," he warned her. "One
day, Liesel! — Markus Zusak

Come here, woman," he growled. I laughed and rushed the short distance between us. I almost fell when my feet hit something foreign. "Tell me you noticed," he said, dry. His eyes twinkled with humor. I looked down and giggled. I hadn't noticed. "How am I supposed to notice anything when you're standing there without a shirt?" "You're forgiven."
-Braeden & Ivy — Cambria Hebert

We, the beggar class, have little to lose and our expectations are, at best, modest, and when we suffer, it seems we suffer to the depths, for there is nothing in our lives nor in our souls to buoy our hope. Nothing in the way of the blackness. It sinks to the bottom as the lead weight that is despair. We look forward such a short distance that our spirit is myopic, not to be corrected by any lens within our world. — Dan Groat

Liberal attitudes towards the other are characterized both by respect for otherness, openness to it, and an obsessive fear of harassment. In short, the other is welcomed insofar as its presence is not intrusive, insofar as it is not really the other. Tolerance thus coincides with its opposite. My duty to be tolerant towards the other effectively means that I should not get too close to him or her, not intrude into his space - in short, that I should respect his intolerance towards my over-proximity. This is increasingly emerging as the central human right of advanced capitalist society: the right not to be 'harassed', that is, to be kept at a safe distance from others. — Slavoj Zizek

we try looking there?" "Good idea," Rachel said, walking toward it. "Oh, aren't the trees beautiful with all their blossoms?" The others agreed. Delicate sprays of pinky-white flowers lined the branches of the apple trees. "And that one is even prettier than the others," Kirsty said, pointing out a tree a short distance away. It was covered in blossoms. "I wonder why it's flowering so well?" A thought struck her and she stopped. Kirsty looked excitedly at Tia. "You don't think it has anything to do with your petal's magic powers, do you?" Tia's eyes lit up. — Daisy Meadows

Wonderful, darling Oksana, allow me to kiss you!" the encouraged blacksmith said and pressed her to him with the intention of snatching a kiss; but Oksana withdrew her cheeks, which were a very short distance from the blacksmith's lips, and pushed him away.
"What more do you want? He's got honey and asks for a spoon! Go away, your hands are harder than iron. And you smell of smoke. I suppose you've made me all sooty. — Nikolai Gogol

Paul Revere's ride is perhaps the most famous historical example of a word-of-mouth epidemic. A piece of extraordinary news traveled a long distance in a very short time, mobilizing an entire region to arms. Not all word-of-mouth epidemics are this sensational, of course. But it is safe to say that word of mouth is-even in this age of mass communications and multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns-still the most important form of human communication — Malcolm Gladwell

We may not know what lies ahead of us in the future years, nor even in the days or hours immediately beyond. But for a few yards, or possibly only a few feet, the track is clear, our duty is plain, our course is illumined. For that short distance, for the next step, lighted by the inspiration of God, go on! — James E. Talmage

year, possibly longer. The Hostetlers had then purchased a little haus for Noah and Hannah. The haus had been built by Englischers and was conveniently adjoining the Millers' property. It was ideal, as it was all on one level and had no stairs, apart from two on the porch, and given the fact that Noah worked in Mr. Miller's woodworking business, he only had a short distance to drive the buggy to work each day. The Miller familye and Amos sat down at the table, put their hands — Ruth Hartzler

If we think of life as a kind of Olympic games, some of life's crises are sprints. They require maximum emotional concentration for a short time. Then they are over, and life returns to normal. But other crises are distance events. They ask us to maintain our concentration over a much longer period of time, and that can be a lot harder. — Harold S. Kushner

This is the dialectic - there is a very short distance between high art and trash, and trash that contains an element of craziness is by this very quality nearer to art. — Douglas Sirk

The distance was short, and at the end of ten minutes his carriage, or rather the count's, stopped before the Hotel de Londres. — Alexandre Dumas

The two-piece ball I switched to spun too much. One shot would go the distance I thought it should, then the next one would fall short, and then the next one would go long. — Payne Stewart

Our life is a short time in expectation, a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment. There is a quality of sadness that pervades all the moments of our lives. It seems that there is no such thing as a clear-cut pure joy, but that even in the most happy moments of our existence we sense a tinge of sadness. In every satisfaction, there is an awareness of limitations. In every success, there is the fear of jealousy. Behind every smile, there is a tear. In every embrace, there is loneliness. In every friendship, distance. And in all forms of light, there is the knowledge of surrounding darkness ... But this intimate experience in which every bit of life is touched by a bit of death can point us beyond the limits of our existence. It can do so by making us look forward in expectation to the day when our hearts will be filled with perfect joy, a joy that no one shall take away from us. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

The last rain had come at the beginning of April and now, at the first of June, all but the hardiest mosquitoes had left their papery skins in the grass. It was already seven o'clock in the morning, long past time to close windows and doors, trap what was left of the night air slightly cooler only by virtue of the dark. The dust on the gravel had just enough energy to drift a short distance and then collapse on the flower beds. The sun had a white cast, as if shade and shadow, any flicker of nuance, had been burned out by its own fierce center. There would be no late afternoon gold, no pale early morning yellow, no flaming orange at sunset. If the plants had vocal cords they would sing their holy dirges like slaves. — Jane Hamilton

There are those who hold that there is a pattern to all that is said and done in this world, that no thing happens without reason nor out of time. As to that, I cannot speak, for I have seen too many threads cut short to believe it, but of a surety, I have seen too the weft of my fate shuttled on the loom. If there is a pattern, I do not think there is anyone among us who can stand at a great enough distance to discern it; yet I will not say that it is not so. — Jacqueline Carey

Marta Jolicoeur: We all learned how to ride from George and had wonderful riding careers but more than that, George taught us how to be successful in life...George had us all sized up. He used to tell me that I'm a worrier and he was right! I used to get rally nervous in the ring when I was about fifteen, and he made me go around the ring, reciting out loud, 'I know I'm going to see a distance. It might be a little short or a little long, but I know I'm going to see something.' I would have to say it loud over and over again on course... — George H. Morris

Miracles are short-term solutions, it's wisdom that helps you go the distance. — John Nolte

There are some good things to be said about walking. Not many, but some. Walking takes longer, for example, than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed. I have a friend who's always in a hurry; he never gets anywhere. Walking makes the world much bigger and thus more interesting. You have time to observe the details. The utopian technologists foresee a future for us in which distance is annihilated. ... To be everywhere at once is to be nowhere forever, if you ask me. — Edward Abbey

The distance of a voice, is only a short time away from touch. — Anthony Liccione

[T]he distance between sympathy and sensuality is as short as that which separates those two words in the dictionary. — Pitigrilli

I had four sandwiches when I left New York. I only ate one and a half during the whole trip and drank a little water. I don't suppose I had time to eat any more because, you know, it surprised me how short a distance it is to Europe. — Charles Lindbergh

It would take little effort for her to hurt him right now. She could hurt him badly.
But Griffin King could hurt her, as well, and he hadn't. Instead of using force or violence against her, he used patience and understanding. She had no defense against that.
When he let her go, she was shaking. Tears filled her eyes as she turned to her mother who stood staring at her in horror.
"My sweet little girl," her mother whispered. "I didn't know. I would never ... " Her words faded into a choked sob. Finley crossed the short distance between them on quivering legs and wrapped her arms around the shorter woman. She didn't care if Griffin or his nasty aunt saw her tears. If anything was worth crying over, the discovery that her father had made her a monster had to be one. — Kady Cross

5. Unfair to Animals 6. Unfair to Muledom THE HALF-PENNANT PORCH Finley was obsessed with the Yankees and attributed their success to the short distance to the right field fence in Yankee Stadium. He believed sluggers who batted left-handed, like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, and Roger Maris, had an unfair advantage. The fence was the sole reason the Yankees were winners. Before the 1964 season, Finley sought to create his own advantage. He moved his right field fence so that it was 296 feet from home plate and called it his "Pennant Porch." The commissioner forced Finley to change it to 325 feet. — Josh Ostergaard

As Paul Saffo, a forecaster of large-scale change at Discern Analytics, observes wisely, 'Change is never linear. Our expectations are linear, but new technologies come in S curves, so we routinely overestimate short-term change and underestimate long-term change.' Never mistake a clear view for a short distance, he adds. — Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran

And as short as two miles had come to seem to him over the course of his running career, it occurred to him now that two miles was an insurmountable distance to an infant, or a legless man, or a human cadaver for that matter. Einstein was right, he decided. It is all relative. — John L. Parker Jr.

He proposed a steam-powered pneumatic tube system to carry telegraph forms the short distance from the Stock Exchange to the main telegraph office. — Tom Standage

Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly. — Edward Albee

At the end of the elementary program, I then had to move onto high school. Simultaneously, my parents moved to Attica to a suburban area not far from the well-known Attica State Prison. Then I would take the school bus which was a very short distance away, where I was involved with a much larger community. — Paul Smith

But I've always had a low voice, I can't yell, the words fall a short distance away like a handful of pebbles thrown by a child. — Elena Ferrante

But once you cross the Shannon - even though geographically you have only come a short distance - different rules of time apply, and most people still understand the crucial secret of human happiness: that it's better to do a few things slowly, than a lot of things fast. — Pete McCarthy

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done. — Alan Turing

by the lane that turns immediately into the woods, or the broad road that lies open before him into the distance, and shows him the far-off spires of some city, or a range of mountain-tops, or a rim of sea, perhaps, along a low horizon. In short, he may gratify his every whim and fancy, without a pang — Robert Louis Stevenson

If you love somebody, tell them. If there is conflict, let it go and fight instead for peace. Break the numb false silence and break the distance too. Laugh and cry and apologize and start again. This life is short and fragile but friendship is among the greatest miracles. — Jamie Tworkowski

He got up, wishing to go around, but the aunt handed him the snuffbox right over Helene, behind her back. Helene moved forward so as to make room and, smiling, glanced around. As always at soirees, she was wearing a gown in the fashion of the time, quite open in front and back. Her bust, which had always looked like marble to Pierre, was now such a short distance from him that he could involuntarily make out with his nearsighted eyes the living loveliness of her shoulders and neck, and so close to his lips that he had only to lean forward a little to touch her. He sensed the warmth of her body, the smell of her perfume, and the creaking of her corset as she breathed. He saw not her marble beauty, which made one with her gown, he saw and sensed all the loveliness of her body, which was merely covered by clothes. And once he had seen it, he could not see otherwise, as we cannot return to a once-exposed deception. — Leo Tolstoy

With this house. Placing his hand on the cool metal handle on the door of his black Bentley, he barely heard the familiar click as the catch released. And as he climbed into the seat, he was oblivious to the fresh, pungent smell of the smooth leather upholstery. Pulling quickly out of the driveway, Rafe began heading the short distance to the city, where he had a condo a couple of blocks from his office building. Luckily, Sharron had refused to live in San Francisco, causing him to sleep there on the many late nights he'd worked. The apartment was his - his — Melody Anne

My eye is still used to searching for her in a crowd. My breath is still used to catching when I see her and the light is angled just right. My body is still used to hers moving next to mine. So the distance - anything short of contact - is a constant rejection. We were together for six months, and in each of those months my desire found new ways to be fueled by her. It's over can't kill that. All of the songs I wrote in my head were for her, and now I can't stop them from playing. This null soundtrack. I'm tired, she'd said, and I told her that I was tired, too, and that I wanted to take some time for us, too. And then she'd said, No, I'm tired of you, and I slipped into the surreal-but-true universe where we were over and I wasn't over it. She was no longer any kind of here that I could get to — David Levithan

If food was no longer obliged to make intercontinental journeys, but stayed part of a system in which it can be consumed over short distances, we would save a lot of energy and carbon dioxide emissions. And just think of what we would save in ecological terms without long-distance transportation, refrigeration, and packaging
which ends up on the garbage dump anyway
and storage, which steals time, space, and vast portions of nature and beauty. — Carlo Petrini

They would emerge a short distance away, sometimes three or four of them, a short lived archipelago of volcanic islands. — Yann Martel

I don't want you to think I don't love my extended family. I do. I just don't want to be around them. Some of this is because I'm a loner. Some of this is because at family gatherings you are forced to face the short genetic distance between you and a clinically insane person. — Jim Gaffigan

What you could learn from me, you child, you have learned." "Oh no," cried Goldmund, "we didn't become friends to end it now! What sort of friendship would that be, that reached its goal after a short distance and then simply stopped? Are you tired of me? Have you no more affection for me? — Hermann Hesse

Moral qualities rule the world, but at short distances the senses are despotic. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was younger I probably didn't understand something basic about tact, but I think it kept faint-hearted people at arm's distance and that's not such a bad thing, because life is short and I know the kind of people I want to work with. — Debra Winger