Quotes & Sayings About Stopped Clock

Since I stopped drinking my love life has taken a really serious hit. Romantic encounters that seemed like a really good idea at three o'clock in the morning on the Lower East Side? Less so in sobriety. — Moby

An hour and thirty-one minutes after launch, my pressure altimeter halts at 103,300 feet. At ground control the radar altimeters also have stopped-on readings of 102,800 feet, the figure that we later agree upon as the more reliable. It is 7 o'clock in the morning, and I have reached float altitude ... Though my stabilization chute opens at 96,000 feet, I accelerate for 6,000 feet more before hitting a peak of 614 miles an hour, nine-tenths the speed of sound at my altitude. — Joseph Kittinger

Acquainted with the Night
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night. — Robert Frost

Grip's favorite painting didn't contain a single figure. 'Seven A.M.' showed distant trees on one side, and on the other a storefront that time had passed by. So still. Some kind of story could probably be told, but one refrained from asking questions. The light and shadows convinced the viewer to exist in the moment. Hopper had drawn sharp lines where the sun cast shadows on the white walls inside the window, while outside the ground gleamed like warm sand. The hands of an old wall clock suggested that the time was seven. Someone who should have been there was somewhere else. Yet nothing was missing. With the morning light streaming down on the ground and in through the window, time might as well have stopped - so the clock always stood at seven.
Just like that, a place where nothing ever changes. — Robert Karjel

Look at those numbers running. Money makes time. It used to be the other way around. Clock time accelerated the rise of capitalism. People stopped thinking about eternity. They began to concentrate on hours, measurable hours,man-hours, using labor more efficiently. — Don DeLillo

In love everything changes, and continues changing all the time. There is no stillness, no stopped clock of the heart in which the moment of happiness holds forever, but only the constant whirring forward motion of desire and need, rising and falling, falling and rising, full of doubts then certainties that moment by moment change and become doubts again. — Niall Williams

The regularity of the clock was a metaphor for the accuracy of the universe. For the accuracy of God's creative achievement. So the clock was, first and foremost, a metaphor.
Like a work of art. And that is how it was. The clock has been like a work of art, a product of the laboratory, a question.
And then, at some point, this has changed. At some point the clock has stopped being a question. Instead it has become the answer. — Peter Hoeg

A stopped clock is correct twice a day, but a sundial can be used to stab someone, even at nighttime. — John Hodgman

The other night I took Jims with me for a walk down to the store. It was the first time he had ever been out so late at night, and when he saw the stars he exclaimed, 'Oh, Willa, see the big moon and all the little moons!' And last Wednesday morning, when he woke up, my little alarm clock had stopped because I had forgotten to wind it up. Jims bounded out of his crib and ran across to me, his face quite aghast above his little blue flannel pyjamas. 'The clock is dead,' he gasped, 'oh Willa, the clock is dead.' "One night he was quite angry with both Susan and me because we would not give him something he wanted very much. When he said his prayers he plumped down wrathfully, and when he came to the petition 'Make me a good boy' he tacked on emphatically, 'and please make Willa and Susan good, 'cause they're not.' "I — L.M. Montgomery

But I guess maybe Mom and Dad are smart enough to realize that pointing out the second hand on the clock isn't going to suddenly mend the fissure straight through my aorta.
Here's the thing, though- they were right.
We're deep into winter and I've stopped feeling like there is a spear in my chest every time he's up against Branlet in the hallway. — Mindy McGinnis

Winston stopped reading, chiefly in order to appreciate the fact that he was reading, in comfort and safety. He was alone: no telescreen, no ear at the keyhole, no nervous impulse to glance over his shoulder or cover the page with his hand. The sweet summer air played against his cheek. From somewhere far away there floated the faint shouts of children: in the room itself there was no sound except the insect voice of the clock. He settled deeper into the arm-chair and put his feet up on the fender. It was bliss, it was eternity. — George Orwell

The wall clock and her wristwatch had stopped, their sweep hands no longer wiping away the seconds, and the digital clock on the microwave had gone dark, as if something that lived outside of time had stepped into this world and brought its clockless ambiance with it. — Dean Koontz

What's going on with your face, by the way?"
Gansey rubbed his chin, rueful. His skin felt reluctantly stubbled. He knew he was being diverted, but he allowed it. "Is it growing?"
"Dude, you aren't really going to do that beard thing, are you? I thought you were joking. You know that stopped being cool in the fourteen century or whenever it was that Paul Bunyan lived." Ronan looked over his shoulder at him. He was sporting the five o'clock shadow that he was capable of growing at any time of the day. "Just stop. You look mangy."
"It's irrelevant. It's not growing. I'm doomed to be a man-child."
"If you keep saying things like 'man-child,' we're done," Ronan said. "Hey, man. Don't let it get you down. Once your balls drop, that beard'll come in great. — Maggie Stiefvater

There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to the public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute not common law. Neither individuals not corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back. — Robert A. Heinlein

There's lots to do; we have a very busy schedule - "At 8 o'clock we get up, and then we spend "From 8 to 9 daydreaming. "From 9 to 9:30 we take our early midmorning nap. "From 9:30 to 10:30 we dawdle and delay. "From 10:30 to 11:30 we take our late early morning nap. "From 11:30 to 12:00 we bide our time and then eat lunch. "From 1:00 to 2:00 we linger and loiter. "From 2:00 to 2:30 we take our early afternoon nap. "From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today. "From 3:30 to 4:00 we take our early late afternoon nap. "From 4:00 to 5:00 we loaf and lounge until dinner. "From 6:00 to 7:00 we dillydally. "From 7:00 to 8:00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9:00 we waste time. "As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if we stopped to think or laugh, we'd never get nothing done. — Norton Juster

Wha--huh? You've made a mistake? You? Wait... The world isn't ending. Big Ben's Infinity Day Clock has stopped. You can't have made a mistake. It's simply not... possible. It's a day just like any other day. - Evaline, to Mina — Colleen Gleason

I stopped making videos and commercials for a few months before I started films just to reset my clock because so much narrative filmmaking is a sense of tempo and rhythm. — Mark Romanek

Then she wound up the clock. Witches didn't have much use for clocks, but she kept it for the tick ... well, mainly for the tick. It made a place seem lived in. It had belonged to her mother, who'd wound it up every day. It hadn't come as a surprise to her when her mother died, firstly because Esme Weatherwax was a witch and witches have an insight into the future and secondly because she was already pretty experienced in medicine and knew the signs. So she'd had a chance to prepare herself, and hadn't cried at all until the day afterward, when the clock stopped right in the middle of the funeral lunch. She'd dropped a tray of ham rolls and then had to go and sit by herself in the privy for a while, so that no one would see. — Terry Pratchett

The fifties were far from utopia, but we all know they were significantly happier than today. At this point someone will respond by quoting the ultimate law of life: "Ah, but you can't turn back the clock. You can't go home again. You can't stop progress." Yes, you can. This 'ultimate law' is a lie. ...We can stop this false god Progress. But instead we have stopped real progress. Real progress means getting closer to our goal. And the goal of every human being is happiness. Whatever we do, we do to obtain some kind of happiness. And since we are no longer in "happy days," it logically follows that we have stopped progressing, by the most universal definition of "progress" - progress towards happiness. We have regressed. — Peter Kreeft

He was hanging from one of the rafters in a laundry up near Frau Diller's. Another human pendulum. Another clock, stopped. — Markus Zusak

At the great iron gate of the churchyard he stopped and looked in. He looked up at the high tower spectrally resisting the wind, and he looked round at the white tombstones, like enough to the dead in their winding-sheets, and he counted the nine tolls of the clock-bell. — Charles Dickens

So, you don't give out freebies? Like ever?" That just sounded so bizarre to me. I would've thought a gigolo would be a complete man-whore, even off the clock.
But when his jaw went dead still as he stopped chewing and he said, "Are you ... asking for one? — Linda Kage

Then, on December 14, 1999, an alert United States Customs agent in Port Angeles, Washington, stopped a nervous twenty-three-year-old Algerian named Ahmed Ressam who was crossing over from Canada on the last ferry of the evening. He had explosives in his trunk and plans to blow them up at the Los Angeles International Airport. The case galvanized the government into an all-out millennium alert. Watson and the White House counterterrorism group met around the clock. They sought an extraordinary number of FISA wiretaps; Janet Reno authorized at least one warrantless search on her own authority. Clarke — Tim Weiner

The red hands had stopped at four-twenty-seven. He wondered what day they had stopped. As he descended the stairs with his armful of books, he wondered at just what moment the clock stopped. Had it been morning or night? Was it raining or shining? Was anyone there when it stopped? — Richard Matheson

The clock of communism has stopped striking. But its concrete building has not yet come crashing down. For that reason, instead of freeing ourselves, we must try to save ourselves from being crushed by its rubble. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The next day I got up early and walked through the city. I visited the Musee Rodin. I stopped in a bistro, and with all the fear of a boy approaching a beautiful girl at a party, I ordered two beers and then a burger. I walked to Le Jardin du Luxembourg. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. I took a seat. The garden was busting with people, again in all their alien ways. At that moment a strange loneliness took hold. Perhaps it was that I had not spoken a single word of English that entire day. Perhaps it was that I had never sat in a public garden before, had not even know it to be something I'd want to do. And all around me there were people who did this regularly. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Even a stopped clock is right twice every day. After some years, it can boast of a long series of successes. — Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

I could hear my watch whenever the car stopped, but not often they were already eating Who would play a Eating the business of eating inside of you space too space and time confused Stomach saying noon brain saying eat o clock All right I wonder what time it is what of it. — William Faulkner

She longed to find out if the sparks would still be there, if her body would still quiver at his touch.
When Rob arrived five o'clock sharp, Jordan had her answer.
He climbed out of the truck. Seeing her standing in the doorway, he walked very slowly toward her, like a predator stalking its prey. He was a man on a mission, and Jordan stood frozen to the spot. Rob stopped short in front of her and without any notice, cupped her face, and brought his mouth down on hers. — Samantha Chase

Red eyes, clogged vessels, tanned cells and septum holes,
She came up to me with an ashtray, and a bunch of tobacco rolls,
I mean, how can I fill the gap that you've created??
How could I switch the clock back to the past, for the time I have wasted?
I have gone a sedate now; the heart has stopped pumping zeal into my head,
And for the hole in my heart, which is so dead now, which has run out of life now,
I carry the loads of moments that you've endowed. — Nishikant

Our awareness of time affects how we think and act. This is illustrated by the story about the clock in a restaurant window. It "had stopped a few minutes past noon. One day a friend asked the owner if he knew the clock was not running. 'Yes,' replied the restaurant man, 'but you would be surprised to know how many people look at that clock, think they are hungry, and come in to get something to eat."' If only there were some kind of divine timepiece that would arouse a spiritual hunger in people! — James E. Faust

However, Harry, my clock has stopped. The embalmer is rolling up his sleeves. Even as we speak, seventy-two virgins are slipping into schoolgirl uniforms for me. You must live, and I confirm: always put your penis first. — Hanif Kureishi

I remember I was a child, and when I grew up I was a poet. It all happened at sixty miles an hour and on days when the clock stopped and all of humanity fit into a little chapel, into a pinecone, a shot of ouzo, a snail's shell, a piece of soggy rye on the pavement. — Mary Ruefle

The night I sat down to read Dostoievski for the first time was a most important event in my life, even more important than my first love. It was the first deliberate, conscious act which had significance for me; it changed the whole face of the world. Whether it is true that the clock stopped that moment when I looked up after the first deep gulp I don't know any more. But the world stopped dead for a moment, that I know. It was my first glimpse into the soul of a man, or shall I say simply that Dostoievski was the first man to reveal his soul to me?"

Henry Miller — Henry Miller Shreve

It was then that I began to understand that everything in the room had stopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago. I noticed that Miss Havisham put down the jewel exactly on the spot from which she had taken it up. As Estella dealt the cards, I glanced at the dressing-table again, and saw that the shoe upon it, once white, now yellow, had never been worn. I glanced down at the foot from which the shoe was absent, and saw that the silk stocking on it, once white, now yellow, had been trodden ragged. Without this arrest if everything, this standing still of all the pale decayed objects, not even the withered bridal dress on the collapsed form could not have looked so like grave-clothes, or the long veil so like a shroud. — Charles Dickens

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, — Helen Harper

My mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer shortly before three P.M. on Christmas Day of 2008. I don't know the exact time of her death, because none of us thought to look at a clock for a while after she stopped breathing. — Meghan O'Rourke

A Clock stopped
Not the Mantel's
Geneva's farthest skill
Can't put the puppet bowing
That just now dangled still — Emily Dickinson

Old Lights include the resurgent fundamentalists in every religion who put a freeze on history and fortify their adherents against the "new dark age" in which they are forced to live. "Back to the Bible," Old Lights shout; "back to the Koran," Old Lights thunder. But not everything Old Lights say is wrong. Much is right. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, the old adage reminds us. — Leonard Sweet

Haida stopped and glanced at the clock on the wall. Then he looked at Tsukuru. He was, of course, Haida the son, but Haida the father has been the same age in his story, and so the two of them began to overlap in Tsukuru's mind. It was an odd sensation, as if the two distinct temporalities had blended into one. Maybe it wasn't the father who had experienced this, but the son. Maybe Haida was just relating it as if his father had experienced it, when in reality he was the one who had. Tsukuru couldn't shake this illusion. — Haruki Murakami

Of course, Jastrow's comment is exaggerated at best; theologians hardly predicted the Big Bang. If our universe turns out to be closed, hence with an end, this does not mean apocalyptic visions of the end of the world were on target. And even if a beginning for the universe is a successful prediction of one version of theism, this is still not that impressive. After all, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The Big Bang becomes strong support for God only with an argument showing that such a beginning requires a Creator. — Taner Edis

No! Not for a second! I immediately began to think how this could have happened. And I realized that the clock was old and was always breaking. That the clock probably stopped some time before and the nurse coming in to the room to record the time of death would have looked at the clock and jotted down the time from that. I never made any supernatural connection, not even for a second. I just wanted to figure out how it happened. — Richard P. Feynman

Goodness gracious! - What's that? It's the clock striking! And here I've been keeping you awake. Oh, madam, you ought to have stopped me... Can I tuck in your feet? I always tuck in my lady's feet, every night, just the same. And she says, "Good night, Ellen. Sleep sound and wake early!" I don't know what I should do if she didn't say that, now. ... — Katherine Mansfield

But doesn't every precious era feel like fiction once it's gone? After a while, certain vestigial sayings are all that remain. Decades after the invention of the automobile, for instance, we continue to warn each other not to 'put the cart before the horse'. So, too, we do still have 'day'dreams and 'night'mares, and the early-morning clock hours are still known colloquially (if increasing mysteriously) as 'the crack of dawn'. Similarly, even as they grew apart, my parents never stopped calling each other 'sweetheart'. — Karen Thompson Walker