Quotes & Sayings About Slowing Things Down

Perhaps, if you explain to the judge, he will be lenient. He will... weigh your circumstances. But that is his job. Mine is to bring you in."
"Really? I thought your job was to eat baklava. You're slowing down, old man," Aladdin taunted. With a howl of rage Rasoul brought his scimitar down as hard as he could. — Liz Braswell

When things seem to be slowing down, there's this little trick I like to play. I'd plow this virgin who's on her period, and after I'm done I'd just run out into the living room, or the dance floor, with all that bloody goop on my junk and yell, OH MY GOD, I'VE BEEN SHOT IN THE NADS! Yeah, good times. — Zach Braff

You have to be able to slow down enough to switch your focus away from all the ways things could be better, to know how good they already are. — Katherine Ellison

Let me repeat that: Our civilization is constitutionally incapable of reversing the annihilation of natural capital, or even slowing it down. Get used to that. When we really understand that, the project of reconceiving civilization itself will gain powerful impetus. — Charles Eisenstein

That hand slipped under my dress, running along the side of my leg and up to my hip. I burned where he touched me, and everything within me became focused on that hand. It was moving far too slowly, and I grabbed it, ready to urge it on. Adrian chuckled and caught hold of my wrist, pulling my hand away and pinning it down against the covers. "Never thought I'd be the one slowing you down." I opened my eyes and met his. "I'm a quick study. — Richelle Mead

I am done slowing down, giving people their time and space, letting them explore their options. — Marla Miniano

Poetry is about slowing down. You sit and you read something, you read it again, and it reveals a little bit more, and things come to light you never could have predicted. — Mark Strand

It becomes pretty crystal clear once you watch that first assembly [movie cut] the things that are just grinding it to a halt, so to speak, or slowing it down, or getting in the way, yeah. — Todd Phillips

But by taking the time away, getting myself off the treadmill, and just slowing down and learning, I felt I had so much more to give back. And maybe that was something that needed to happen for all of us. — Lindsey Buckingham

Then let us pray," Pastor Patton said firmly. Stella noticed a few townspeople slowing down as they passed by; none of the faces looked pleasant. She closed her eyes. "Dear Lord," said the pastor, we bow down before you as we stand up for dignity. Be with us and protect us both morning, noon and night. Amen. — Sharon M. Draper

Paying attention at every moment, forms a new relationship to time. In some magical way, by slowing down, you become more efficient, productive, and energetic, focusing without distraction directly on the task in front of you. Not only do you become immersed in the moment, you become that moment. — Michael Ray

It's okay to grow up, it's just slowing down that's the scary part. Running out of time. It's okay to grow up, but it doesn't mean you have to become like your parents. — Billie Joe Armstrong

I'm very interested in silence. And, more importantly, in what happens when people aren't talking on stage. I'm interested in letting actors play and do things between the lines. And in slowing everything down. — Annie Baker

I have lived, I have traveled the world, and now, like a worn-out clock, my life is winding down, the hands slowing, stepping out of the flow of time. If one steps out of time what does one have? Why, the past of course, gradually being worn away by the years as a pebble halted on a riverbed is eroded by the passage of water. — Tan Twan Eng

When can I drive the new ride?" "When you learn that a yellow light means haul ass to get through it before it turns red instead of slowing down to a crawl a half a block away. — J.D. Robb

Assumptions can blind you; hypotheses can guide you. Good negotiators expect surprises; great negotiators reveal the surprises. Negotiation should be seen as a process of discovery. If you think you're too smart to discover anything new, then you will be a terrible negotiator. Until you know who or what you are dealing with, you are actually in the dark and should proceed with caution. Listening well does not come easily to most. By truly listening, you will disarm your opponent, giving them a sense of calm and a feeling of safety. Talking about wants gives us an illusion of control; needs are required to survive and make us feel vulnerable. The biggest mistake a negotiator can make is to rush things. By slowing down the process, you are able to calm down the situation. A soothing but confident voice helps in confrontational situations. Mirroring relies on the fact that we fear what's different and are drawn to what's similar. — Book Summary

But to do its noticing and judging, poetry balances itself on the pinprick of the moment. Slowing down, stopping yourself completely, to read and understand a poem is like trying to acquire an old-fashioned skill ... — Ian McEwan

Time has this way of slowing down and speeding up,depending on how it feels. — Carol Lynch Williams

slowing down an activity may meet with greater success than doing it quickly. — Linda Lantieri

I really like the concept of, like, slowing down and savoring your food, enjoying it. — Gillian Jacobs

Letter writing is an excellent way of slowing down this lunatic helterskelter universe long enough to gather one's thoughts — Nick Bantock

My editor and I remain very disciplined. It's just sometimes when you're making a film, you get into the cutting room and you see a scene that's slowing you down in a certain section, but if you remove that scene then, emotionally or story-wise, another scene a half-hour later won't have the same impact. You just get stuck with it. — Alexander Payne

The house had a private walk down to a private spit of beach, and in the mornings the four of them would troop downhill and swim - even he did, in his pants and undershirt and an old oxford shirt, which no one bothered him about - and then lie on the sand baking, the wet clothes ungluing themselves from his body as they dried. Sometimes Harold would come and watch them, or swim as well. In the afternoons, Malcolm and JB would pedal off through the dunes on bicycles, and he and Willem would follow on foot, picking up bits of shaley shells and the sad carapaces of long-nibbled-away hermit crabs as they went, Willem slowing his pace to match his own. In the evenings, when the air was soft, JB and Malcolm sketched and he and Willem read. He felt doped, on sun and food and salt and contentment, and at night he fell asleep quickly and early, and in the mornings he woke before the others so he could stand on the back porch alone looking over the sea. — Hanya Yanagihara

The principal impact of foreign enterprise on the development of the underdeveloped countries lies in hardening and strengthening the sway of merchant capitalism, in slowing down and indeed preventing its transformation into industrial capitalism. — Paul A. Baran

Life itself is the best (and the only) timekeeper. — Rasheed Ogunlaru

Well, I don't ever leave out details, in that I don't come up with information or description which I don't then use. I only ever come up with what seems to me absolutely essential to make the story work. I'm not usually an overwriter. As I revise, it's usually a matter of adding in as much vivid details as seem necessary to make the story come clear without slowing down the momentum of the story. — Kelly Link

I could live there all alone, she thought, slowing the car to look down the winding garden path to the small blue front door with, perfectly, a white cat on the step. No one would ever find me there, either, behind all those roses, and just to make sure I would plant oleanders by the road. I will light a fire in the cool evenings and toast apples at my own hearth. I will raise white cats and sew white curtains for the windows and sometimes come out of my door to go to the store to buy cinnamon and tea and thread. People will come to me to have their fortunes told, and I will brew love potions for sad maidens; I will have a robin ... — Shirley Jackson

In meditation you experience time slowing down because you can notice more things per discreet moment and you're more open ... The word 'meditation' in Sanskrit comes from the word 'familiarization' - as in familiarization with one's own mind. — Richard Davidson

and what we see is the world
that cannot cherish us
but which we cherish,
and what we see is our life
moving like that,
along the dark edges
of everything - the headlights
like lanterns
sweeping the blackness -
believing in a thousand
fragile and unprovable things,
looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping
barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me. — Mary Oliver

Jacqueline ran like she had been saving all her running for this moment, for this place where no one could see her, or scold her, or tell her that ladies didn't behave that way, sit down, slow down, you'll rip your dress, you'll stain your tights, be good. She was getting grass stains on her knees and mud under her fingernails, and she knew she'd regret both those things later, but in the moment, she didn't care. She was finally running. She was finally free.
Jillian ran more slowly, careful not to trample the flowers, slowing down whenever she felt like it to look around herself in wide-eyed wonder. No one was telling her to go faster, to run harder, to keep her eyes on the ball; no one wanted this to be a competition. For the first time in years, she was running solely for the joy of running, and when she tripped and fell into the flowers, she went down laughing. — Seanan McGuire

All of this highlights one of the most challenging obstacles that prevents teams from taking the time to work on how they work together: adrenaline addiction. Many if not most of the executives and managers I know have become so hooked on the rush of urgent demands and out-of-control schedules that the prospect of slowing down to review, think, talk, and develop themselves is too anxiety-inducing to consider. Of course, this is exactly what they need, which is what addiction is all about - doing things that are bad for you even when confronted with evidence that they are, well, bad for you. — Patrick Lencioni

But we need to search for and find, what we need to own and perfect into a magnificent, shining thing, is a new kind of politics. Not the politics of governments, but the politics of resistance. The politics of opposition. The politics of forcing accountability. The politics of slowing things down. In the present circumstances, I'd say the only thing worth globalizing is dissent. — Megan McKenna

In a way, 'Sin City's designed to be paced somewhere between an American comic book and Japanese manga. Working in black and white, I realized that the eye is less patient, and you have to make your point, and sometimes repeat it. Slowing things down is harder in black and white, because there isn't as much for the eye to enjoy. — Frank Miller

Driving through them, most places look about the same as most others. Walking around is how you get the sense of a place's character. Walking keeps you slow enough to notice the little things. — Michael G. Williams

I'm thinking of slowing down on modeling and branching out to other things. I want to pursue some new and old dreams and start making them happen. — Chanel Iman

What a blessing, what a treasured friend that despair turned out to be. It continually crushed my ongoing attempts at manufacturing optimism, slowing me down, leveling me so I could return to love and begin again and again. — Lori Cash Richards

Thousand of Virginia's are losing their coverage, facing skyrocketing insurance premiums and losing their doctors under Obamacare. Employers across the Commonwealth say that the law is preventing or slowing down hiring and growth. — Rob Wittman

To the contrary, when you look at projections, both Polish and international, we can expect some slowing down of the rate of growth in the coming year, 2012. But of course these are projections. — Marek Belka

It is not simply that these two cities are perched side by side at the edge of the Pacific; it is that adolescence sits next to middle age, and they don't know how to relate to each other. In a way, these two cities exist in different centuries. San Diego is a post-industrial city talking about settling down, slowing down, building clean industry. Tijuana is a preindustrial city talking about changing, moving forward, growing. Yet they form a single metropolitan area. — Richard Rodriguez

There are lots of retailers that are now scrambling to emulate the Amazon model, so Amazon does not have a monopoly on same-day distribution or broad selection or low prices. All that said, there are advantages that accrue to the largest player, so I don't see much in the way of Amazon slowing down. — Brad Stone

Observing any human being from infancy, seeing someone come into existence, like a new flower in bud, each petal first tightly furled around another, and then the natural loosening and unfurling, the opening into a bloom, the life of that bloom, must be something wonderful to behold; to see experience collect in the eyes, around the corners of the mouth, the weighing down of the brow, the heaviness in heart and soul, the thick gathering around the waist, the breasts, the slowing down of footsteps not from old age but only with the caution of life-all this is something so wonderful to observe, so wonderful to behold; the pleasure for the observer, the beholder, is an invisible current between the two, observed and observer, beheld and beholder, and I believe that no life is complete, no life is really whole, without this invisible current, which is in many ways a definition of love. — Jamaica Kincaid

Greatest surprises I have encountered has been that the people who seem wisest about the necessity of placing limits on the newest technologies are, often, precisely the ones who helped develop those technologies, which have bulldozed over so many of the limits of old. The very people, in short, who have worked to speed up the world are the same ones most sensitive to the virtue of slowing down. — Pico Iyer

It's a mistake to predict the size of markets that are so new. This model has shown no signs of slowing down. So we are going to get as much of it as we possibly can, and when we get close to that we'll figure out other problems. — Eric Schmidt

Patience requires a slowing down, a spaciousness, a sense of ease. — Allan Lokos

But as much as life is sometimes about knowing what you want and going after it and finishing, maybe other times it's about slowing down and shutting up and waiting. There's not always a clear beginning and obvious end. Sometimes we're in the middle . . . and it's okay to camp out there for a while. — Melissa Tagg

Age is a slowing down of everything except fear. — Mignon McLaughlin

The body responds to a calorie deficit by slowing down the metabolism and burning muscle tissue. That leads to weakness, sluggishness, slow times. In girls, it can also result in cessation of menstrual periods, which in turn leads to loss of bone density and frequent stress fractures. — Don Kardong

Now, the DJ becomes a star in itself because of the way he programs the songs with lows and then highs and then slowing it down. The big DJs, like Tiesto and Deadmau5 and all those guys, they are very, very creative. — Giorgio Moroder

I turned to leave and was exiting the gates when I heard the sound of feet running quickly along the gravel behind me. I turned and saw Alexei, who showed no sign of slowing down, so I opened my arms and he ran into them, embracing me tightly, his arms wrapped around my neck as I lifted him off the ground.
"I wanted you to know," he said, his voice choked up as if he was trying to stop himself from crying, "I wanted you to know that you can be my brother if you like. As long as you let me be yours. — John Boyne

Even if I don't want to slow down, I'm slowing down. — Eli Wallach

He followed another voice. "This isn't real, man. Maybe we're having some kind of mass hallucination." "Well, you stay and check it out then," someone called back. "I'm getting the hell out of here." The wolf loped closer, scenting the human. The man was slowing down, certain none of this could be reality. The wolf leapt, covering a considerable distance in a single spring and catching the human by the seat of his pants. He got a mouthful of denim, and the man gave a high-pitched scream. Without looking back, he bolted to join his friends, his boots loud on the street as he escaped. Aidan laughed out loud this time, the sound echoing eerily, carried on the thick bed of fog. He couldn't remember the last time he had had so much fun. — Christine Feehan

Just as a river flows to the sea, growing older and slowing down are just part of the natural scenery, and I've got to accept it. It might not be a very natural process and what I discover as a result might not be all that pleasant. But what choice do I have, anyway? In my own way, I've enjoyed my life so far, even if I can't say I've fully enjoyed it. — Haruki Murakami

Her correspondence had been like the pumping of a heart into a severed artery, wild and incessant at first, then slowing down with a kind of muscular reluctance to a stream that became a trickle and finally ceased; the heart had stopped. — Michael Chabon

In this media-drenched, data-rich, channel-surfing, computer-gaming age, we have lost the art of doing nothing, of shutting out the background noise and distractions, of slowing down and simply being alone with our thoughts. — Carl Honore

The weary Italian woman nodded at her children behind her. "Where we came from, everybody lives only one kind of life. Alessandro said he wanted his children to choose the life, not the life to choose the children. And also," she added, panting, slowing down and wiping her brow, "he said America is the only place in the world where even the poor can be smart. — Paullina Simons

A mind that is racing over worries about the future or recycling resentments from the past is ill equipped to handle the challenges of the moment. By slowing down, we can train the mind to focus completely in the present. Then we will find that we can function well whatever the difficulties. That is what it means to be stress-proof: not avoiding stress but being at our best under pressure, calm, cool, and creative in the midst of the storm. — Eknath Easwaran

Learn to pause...or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you. — Doug King

No. You cared. The rest of them were slowing down to see the blood on the road." There had been plenty of it. — C.D. Reiss